Red Cloud v. United States
| Decision Date | 09 March 2022 |
| Docket Number | 20-608 |
| Court | U.S. Claims Court |
| Parties | HENRY DELORE RED CLOUD, et al., Plaintiffs, v. THE UNITED STATES, Defendant. |
The allegations of sexual abuse suffered by Plaintiffs in this action, who were at the time children or young teens, are horrific and heart-wrenching. They also are in part not merely unproven allegations. The alleged abuser or "bad man" at the center of Plaintiffs' Complaint-a doctor, Stanley Weber, to whom the United States entrusted the medical care of Native American children in the Indian Health System ("IHS")-was convicted in federal district court in September 2019 of sexually abusing four of the five Plaintiffs in this case. Sadly, it is not his only conviction. A year earlier, he was found guilty of sexually abusing two other Native American boys who were members of the Blackfeet Tribe in Montana. According to Plaintiffs, news reporting in early 2019 revealed that IHS officials knew of child sex abuse allegations involving Dr. Weber and did nothing to stop him.
On May 15, 2020, Plaintiffs filed this action, seeking compensation from the United States under the 1868 Treaty with the Sioux for the psychological and emotional harm that this government-appointed doctor inflicted on them. The Complaint asserts one claim for relief based on the Treaty's "bad men" provision, which mandates reimbursement for injuries to a tribe member's person or property caused by the acts of "bad men among the whites, or among other people subject to the authority of the United States." Treaty with the Sioux, Sioux Nation-U.S., art I, ¶ 2, Apr. 29-Nov. 6, 1868, 15 Stat. 635 (hereinafter "Treaty").
It is this Court's task to determine whether, as Defendant argues, Plaintiffs' Complaint should be dismissed pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) of the Rules of the United States Court of Federal Claims ("RCFC") because their claim is beyond the statute of limitations. After careful consideration, for the reasons discussed below the Court agrees that Plaintiffs' "bad men" claim based on the wrongs committed by Dr. Weber is time-barred. Thus, it must grant Defendant's Motion to Dismiss to that extent. The Court, however, will provide Plaintiffs the opportunity to seek leave to file an amended complaint asserting a "bad men" claim based on the alleged wrongs of other IHS officials who purportedly concealed knowledge of or failed to report Dr. Weber's sexual abuse.
The 1868 Treaty with the Sioux, also called the Fort Laramie Treaty, sought to resolve conflicts between the Sioux and the white men and to establish the Great Sioux Reservation among the Black Hills of South Dakota. See Pls.' Opp'n to Def.'s Mot. to Dismiss at 18, ECF No. 11; see also United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 U.S. 371, 374 (1980). The Treaty contains two "bad men" provisions, the first providing a legal and financial remedy for wrongs committed by white men against the Sioux and the second for wrongs committed by the Sioux against "any one, white, black, or Indian, subject to the authority of the United States." Treaty, art. I, ¶¶ 2-3.
The former states in relevant part:
If bad men among the whites, or among other people subject to the authority of the United States, shall commit any wrong upon the person or property of the Indians, the United States will . . . proceed at once to cause the offender to be arrested and punished according to the laws of the United States, and also re-imburse the injured person for the loss sustained.
Id. ¶ 2 (emphasis added).
The Treaty is one of nine agreements between the United States and American Indian nations signed in 1868. Tsosie v. United States, 825 F.2d 393, 395 (Fed. Cir. 1987). While these treaties were signed over 150 years ago, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has affirmed that their provisions protecting Indians from "bad men" are not obsolete. Id. at 403 ().
Although the Indian Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1505, grants the Court of Federal Claims exclusive jurisdiction over claims of American Indian tribes that would otherwise be cognizable in this court, the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1491, affords the court jurisdiction over claims of individual tribe members. See Hebah v. United States, 428 F.2d 1334, 1338-39 (Ct. Cl. 1970) (); see also Washington v. Wash. State Com. Passenger Fishing Vessel Ass'n, 443 U.S. 658, 675 (1979) (). Under such jurisdiction, a judge of this court issued the first meritorious decision to a plaintiff under the Treaty's "bad men" provision in 2009. See Elk v. United States (Elk II), 87 Fed.Cl. 70, 83 (2009) ( that the "bad men" provision entitled an Oglala Sioux member-prospective Army nurse to damages for "lost income, as well as pain, suffering and mental anguish," after an Army recruiter assaulted her on a Sioux reservation).
Plaintiffs in this case include Henry Delore Red Cloud, Paul Harold True Blood, Eugene Hunts Horses III, Daniel Joseph Martin, and Fredrick Louis Gayton, all of whom are members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. Pls.' Compl. ¶¶ 1-5, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, ECF No. 1. Plaintiffs allege that Dr. Weber sexually abused them while he was employed as a pediatrician at the IHS hospital on the Pine Ridge Reservation in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. Id. ¶¶ 6, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22. Plaintiffs' allegations-which range from specific instances of abuse to a continuous pattern of abuse-span a period beginning in 1995 and ending in 2010, during which time each Plaintiff was a minor. Id. ¶¶ 10, 13, 16, 19, 22.
The descriptions of Dr. Weber's abuse are harrowing. Some Plaintiffs reported that Dr. Weber began abusing them during physical examinations at the IHS hospital, in which he inappropriately touched their genitals and recta. See, e.g., App. to Pls.' Opp'n to Def.'s Mot. to Dismiss at 349, 353, 356-57, 358, ECF No. 11-2. The abuse reportedly escalated, in some cases to oral and anal sex, and included instances of abuse in Dr. Weber's IHS housing. See, e.g., id. at 353-54, 356-57, 358-59. The circumstances of Plaintiff True Blood's abuse are particularly tragic, as he reported being abused three to four times a week for 10 years while at the same time looking to Dr. Weber for both financial and emotional support when his family put him out. See, e.g., id. at 351.
Plaintiffs claim that Dr. Weber's abuse caused them persistent and continuous mental health issues, including anxiety, depression, and psychological and emotional trauma. ECF No. 1 ¶¶ 12, 15, 18, 21, 24. They assert that, because "all acts alleged . . . were committed within the course and scope of [Dr. Weber's] employment incidental to . . . and/ or in furtherance" of the IHS hospital, the United States is responsible for damages under the Treaty's "bad men" provision. Id. ¶¶ 6, 30-34. The Complaint specifically identifies Dr. Weber-and no other individual-as "a 'bad man' under the Treaty." Id. ¶ 33.
Each Plaintiff claims that "[as] a result of the psychologically self-concealing nature of childhood sexual abuse" he "did not know, and could not have known, of the abuse, the injury, and/ or the causal connection between the abuse and his injury" at the time the abuse was happening. Id. ¶ 11; see id. ¶¶ 14, 17, 20, 23. Each Plaintiff also alleges that he "was unaware of the wrongfulness of the actions of Dr. Weber [or of the events] until a date within six years of the institution of this action." Id. Most Plaintiffs allege that they did not fully appreciate Dr. Weber's abuse, or the effects it had on their lives, until investigators began looking into other allegations of sexual abuse made against Dr. Weber. See, e.g., ECF No. 11-2 at 349, 352, 354.
These investigations, beginning in at least 2016 and 2017, were conducted by Curt Muller, a Special Agent with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General, and by Wall Street Journal reporter Christopher Weaver, which culminated in a PBS Frontline episode. See id. at 13, 28. Plaintiffs allege that news reporting in early 2019 publicly revealed multiple child sex abuse allegations against Dr. Weber while he was employed at an IHS clinic on the Blackfeet Reservation in Browning, Montana, between approximately 1992 and 1995. ECF No. 1 ¶ 25. According to Plaintiffs, this reporting "revealed that the Indian Health Service had institutional knowledge of Dr. Weber's sexual abuse of minors in Montana and, despite this, failed to protect Plaintiffs from sexual abuse, assault and battery." Id. Plaintiffs claim that they "were not aware and could not have been aware" of the Government's liability in this matter, as any information regarding Dr. Weber's misconduct and IHS officials' knowledge of it was "exclusively in the possession of the United States government and concealed until the aforementioned reporting" became public. Id. ¶ 26.
As a result of the criminal investigations, in September 2018, a federal jury in Montana found Dr. Weber guilty of four of five counts of aggravated sexual abuse and attempted aggravated sexual abuse of children for crimes committed against the two Blackfeet Tribe members. See id. ¶ 28; ECF No. 11 at 15; see also Redacted Jury Verdict, United States v. Weber, No 4:18-cr-00014-BMM-1 (D. Mont. Sept. 6, 2018), ECF No. 123. ...
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