Miami Tribe of Oklahoma v. United States

• Decision Date: 15 July 1960
• Docket Number: Appeal No. 2-59.
• Citation: 281 F.2d 202
• Parties: MIAMI TRIBE OF OKLAHOMA, also known as the Miami Tribe, and Harley T. Palmer, Frank C. Pooler and David Leonard, as Representatives of the Miami Tribe, and of All the Members Thereof, Appellants, Ira Sylvester Godfroy, et al., on Relation of the Miami Indian Tribe and Miami Tribe of Indiana, and Each on Behalf of Others Similarly Situated and on Behalf of the Miami Indian Tribe and Various Bands and Groups of Each of Them, Comprising the Miami Tribe and Nation, Appellants v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Claims Court

281 F.2d 202 (1960)

MIAMI TRIBE OF OKLAHOMA, also known as the Miami Tribe, and Harley T. Palmer, Frank C. Pooler and David Leonard, as Representatives of the Miami Tribe, and of All the Members Thereof, Appellants, Ira Sylvester Godfroy, et al., on Relation of the Miami Indian Tribe and Miami Tribe of Indiana, and Each on Behalf of Others Similarly Situated and on Behalf of the Miami Indian Tribe and Various Bands and Groups of Each of Them, Comprising the Miami Tribe and Nation, Appellants v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.

Appeal No. 2-59.

United States Court of Claims.

July 15, 1960.

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Edwin A. Rothschild, Chicago, Ill., for appellants Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and others. Edward P. Morse, Chicago, Ill., and Louis L. Rochmes, Washington, D. C., were on the brief.

Walter H. Maloney, Washington, D. C., for appellants Ira Sylvester Godfroy and others. James N. Berry, Kansas City, Mo., on the brief.

W. Braxton Miller, Washington, D. C., with whom was Asst. Atty. Gen. Perry W. Morton, for appellee.

MADDEN, Judge.

This is an appeal from a decision of the Indian Claims Commission (hereinafter called the Commission). The appellants, the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma (hereinafter called the Miami Tribe) and the Miami Tribe of Indiana (herein referred to as the Indiana Miami) filed claims under the Indian Claims Commission Act of 1946, 60 Stat. 1049, 25 U.S.C. A. §§ 70-70v, to recover additional compensation for certain lands which the Miami ceded to the United States by the Treaty of June 5, 1854, 10 Stat. 1093. Under that treaty, the Miami ceded all of their land located on the eastern border of Kansas, with the exception of 70,640 acres. The consideration to be paid to the Miami Tribe was described as $200,- 000, of which $50,000 was to be invested by the President of the United States for the benefit of the Miami Tribe, with the remainder to be paid to the Miami Tribe in twenty annual installments of $7,500, starting in 1860. No part of the consideration was to be paid to the Indiana Miami. The treaty also provided for commutation of tribal annuities which were payable to the Miami under earlier treaties. Payment for the commutation was to be made to both the Miami Tribe and the Indiana Miami.

The appellants claimed that the consideration they received in 1854 for their lands in Kansas and for the commutation of their annuities was unconscionable or inconsistent with fair and honorable dealings. They also claimed that they were entitled to be paid for more land in Kansas than they actually owned, since the United States had promised to give them more land than it did give them. Finally, they claimed interest on certain sums which they had been paid by the United States in 1891 to reimburse them for amounts which were rightfully theirs but which had been paid to other parties. The total amount claimed by the appellants was $1,092,799.28.

The Commission decided that neither appellant was entitled to relief, in an opinion rendered on July 14, 1958, reported at 6 Ind.Cl.Comm. 552. The Commission made findings of fact which are reported at 6 Ind.Cl.Comm. 513.

Prior to 1846, all of the Miami Indians lived in Indiana. In that year, pursuant to a treaty signed on November 28, 1840, 7 Stat. 582, a group of the Miami Indians moved to Kansas. The Miami Tribe are the descendants of those Miami who went to Kansas and remained there (and later moved to Oklahoma), while the Indiana Miami are the descendants of the Miami who remained in Indiana, or who went to Kansas but later returned to Indiana. An issue in the case is whether the Indiana Miami are entitled to participate in any recovery for inadequate consideration received for the Kansas lands ceded to the United States in 1854. It is agreed that the Indiana Miami will participate in any recovery for inadequacy of consideration paid for the 1854 commutation of annuities. It must first be determined, however, whether there is to be any recovery. The Indiana Miami join with the Miami Tribe on issues relative to liability.

The issues in this case are (1) whether the consideration paid by the United States for the Kansas land ceded to it in 1854 was so inadequate as to entitle the Miami to recover under section 2(3) or 2 (5) of the Indian Claims Commission Act, 25 U.S.C.A. §§ 70a(3) and (5); (2) whether the Miami were entitled in 1854 to be paid for 500,000 acres of Kansas land, rather than for the 324,796.88 acres which they actually owned, on the grounds that they had moved to Kansas on the understanding that the United States would give them 500,000 acres there; (3) whether the consideration paid for the commutation of certain annuities was inadequate; (4) whether the Miami are entitled to recover interest on sums which were paid to them in 1891 to replace allotments and payments which had been wrongfully made in 1858 and 1859 to spurious or unqualified Miami Indians; and (5) whether the Indiana Miami are entitled to share in recovery for the Kansas land.

The Commission found that the land ceded by the Miami on June 5, 1854, had a fair market value on that date of $1.25 per acre, or a total value of $317,697.93. It concluded that the Miami had received $200,000 therefor, and that this amount was "not an unconscionable consideration under the facts and circumstances surrounding its purchase on that date, and that petitioners are not entitled to relief under section 2(5) the `fair and honorable dealings' section of the Indian Claims Commission Act." 6 Ind.Cl. Comm. 551. The Commission further concluded that the consideration paid the Miami for the commutation of their annuities in 1854 was not unfair, dishonorable or unconscionable; that the Miami were not entitled to recover for the number of acres by which the acreage they actually received under the 1840 treaty was less than 500,000, the number of acres the Miami claim they had been promised; and that the Miami were not entitled to recover the interest they claimed on the funds which were misapplied in 1858 and 1859. It also held that the Indiana Miami had no interest in the Kansas land.

(1) The Adequacy of the Consideration Paid for the Kansas Lands Under the 1854 Treaty.

The Commission found that the Kansas lands were worth $1.25 per acre, $317,697.93 in total; the Miami claim they were worth not less than $2.40 per acre, $609,980 in total. The Commission concluded that the Miami received $200,000 for their lands; the Miami contend they received only $121,974.23. The Commission held that consideration of $200,000 for land worth $317,697.93 was not unconscionable; the Miami contend that since they received only $121,974.23 for land worth at least $609,980, they are entitled to recover $488,005.77, but they also argue that even if the Commission was correct about the values of the land and of the consideration, such consideration was unconscionable, or inconsistent with fair and honorable dealings.

In considering the controversy over the value of the land, it must be borne in mind that this court's jurisdiction on appeal is limited to determining

"whether the findings of fact of the Commission are supported by substantial evidence, in which event they shall be conclusive, and also whether the conclusions of law, including any conclusions respecting `fair and honorable dealings\', where applicable, stated by the Commission as a basis for its final determination, are valid and supported by the Commission\'s findings of fact." 25 U.S. C.A. § 70s(b).

The requirement that the Commission's findings of fact be "supported by substantial evidence" means that they must be supported by evidence which is substantial when whatever in the record which fairly detracts from its weight is taken into account. Osage Nation of Indians v. United States, 97 F.Supp. 381, 119 Ct.Cl. 592, 603-614, certiorari denied 342 U.S. 896, 72 S.Ct. 230, 96 L.Ed. 672; Prairie Band of Potawatomi Indians v. United States, Appeal No. 2-57, decided July 16, 1958, 165 F.Supp. 139, 143 Ct. Cl. ___ (slip opinion, p. 21).

We think that, in this case, the Commission's finding as to the value of the land was supported by substantial evidence.

In 1856 the land was surveyed and classified as 13.3% Class I land (bottom, terrace and upland, with alluvial and dark residual prairie soil, having a slope of two percent or less), 65.7% Class II land (land with dark residual prairie soil over a clay subsoil, having slopes up to 12%), and 21% Class III land (land unsuited to agriculture, but which produces a good prairie hay). The tract as a whole had a 40% timber coverage of walnut, hickory, elm, sugar maple and other hardwoods on the uplands and sycamore along the streams. The coverage of the ceded lands was only 15%. The Osage River and its tributaries flow generally south and southeast through the tract. The principal use for this land appears to have been for small-scale farming.

Two expert witnesses testified on behalf of the Government. They based their opinions as to the value of the Kansas land primarily upon a comparison with a 350,000-acre tract of land in Missouri lying just to the east of the Miami lands, across the Kansas-Missouri border. The Government's expert Hall noted that similar and contiguous land in Missouri had been on the market, at $1.25 per acre, for years, but that it had not been sold. He derived a value of 35¢ per acre for the Kansas land, by taking into account deductions for advertising, delay in realizing upon investment, costs of financing transportation and other improvements, and similar items. The Government's witness Murray valued the Kansas land at 50¢ per acre. He found that the Kansas land was quite comparable to the Missouri tract, and noted that only 10% of the Missouri lands had been sold between 1843 and 1846, but that a sharp increase in sales occurred in 1853-1854. It appears that another 10% was sold in 1854, but that about 252,000 of the 350,000 acres, or 72% of the original Missouri tract,...