U.S. v. Atlantic Richfield Co., s. 77-3234

• Decision Date: 04 January 1980
• Docket Number: Nos. 77-3234,77-3972,s. 77-3234
• Citation: 612 F.2d 1132
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, and Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, Plaintiff-Intervenor-Appellant, v. ATLANTIC RICHFIELD COMPANY et al., Defendants-Appellees. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, and Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, Plaintiff-Intervenor, v. ATLANTIC RICHFIELD COMPANY et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 1132

612 F.2d 1132

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, and Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, Plaintiff-Intervenor-Appellant, v. ATLANTIC RICHFIELD COMPANY et al., Defendants-Appellees.

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, and Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, Plaintiff-Intervenor, v. ATLANTIC RICHFIELD COMPANY et al., Defendants-Appellees.

Nos. 77-3234, 77-3972.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

Jan. 4, 1980.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 22, 1980.

Dirk D. Snel, Washington, D. C., for plaintiff-intervenor-appellant.

Richard O. Gantz, Anchorage, Alaska, Avrum M. Gross, Juneau, Alaska, argued for defendants-appellees; Robert L. Hartig, Joseph Rudd, Eugene F. Wiles, Anchorage, Alaska, William B. Rozell, Juneau, Alaska, on the brief.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Alaska.

Before CHOY and KENNEDY, Circuit Judges, and WILLIAMS, ^* District Judge.

CHOY, Circuit Judge:

Appellants protest the ruling of the district court that their trespass claims were extinguished by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

Appellants ¹ represent all the Eskimos on the North Slope of Alaska. Appellees are the State of Alaska ² and companies involved in the effort to exploit North Slope petroleum. Until one or two decades ago the North Slope was essentially unpeopled except for a few Inupiats ³; more recently, there has been a mighty "oil rush." For the purposes of this appeal, we assume that the Inupiats retained unrecognized aboriginal title to the North Slope until 1971. Such title is good against third parties (we assume Arguendo ) but can be extinguished without compensation by the United States. Tee-Hit-Ton Indians v. United States, 348 U.S. 272, 75 S.Ct. 313, 99 L.Ed. 314 (1955).

Pursuant to the Alaska Statehood Act, § 6, the state selected a large amount of oil-rich "vacant, unappropriated, and unreserved" North Slope land for its own in the 1960's. The United States tentatively approved these selections, and the state gave conditional leases to oil interests in exchange for $912,000,000. Most of the alleged trespasses were under this color of state title. We assume Arguendo that, because of the Inupiats' aboriginal title, the selections and leases were invalid and the entries were trespasses. Cf. Alaska v. Udall, 420 F.2d 938 (9th Cir. 1969) (aboriginal rights might prevent state selection), Cert. denied, 397 U.S. 1076, 90 S.Ct. 1522, 25 L.Ed.2d 811 (1970). On petition of the Natives, Congress enacted the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, Pub.L. No. 92-203, 85 Stat. 688 (codified at 43 U.S.C. § 1601 Et seq.) ("the Act") on December 18, 1971. Congress found and declared that "there is an immediate need for a fair and just settlement of all claims by Natives and Native groups of Alaska, based on aboriginal land claims," and that "the settlement should be accomplished rapidly, with certainty, in conformity with the real economic and social needs of Natives, without litigation." 43 U.S.C. § 1601(a), (b).

Appellants instituted this suit against the private defendants for pre-Act trespasses in the belief that the Act had not extinguished such claims. This belief found support in Edwardsen v. Morton, 369 F.Supp. 1359 (D.D.C.1973), but the district court in the present case disagreed and dismissed the claims. 435 F.Supp. 1009 (D.Alaska 1977). ⁴

We hold that the Act extinguished not only the aboriginal titles of all Alaska Natives, but also every claim "based on" aboriginal title in the sense that the past or present existence of aboriginal title is an element of the claim. ⁵ In exchange, the Natives were granted $962,500,000 and 40,000,000 acres of land in fee simple.

II. STATUTORY LANGUAGE

This case requires a construction of § 4 of the Act, 43 U.S.C. § 1603, which reads:

(a) All prior conveyances of public land and water areas in Alaska, or any interest therein, pursuant to Federal law, and all tentative approvals pursuant to section 6(g) of the Alaska Statehood Act, shall be regarded as an extinguishment of the aboriginal title thereto, if any.

(b) All aboriginal titles, if any, and claims of aboriginal title in Alaska based on use and occupancy, including submerged land underneath all water areas, both inland and offshore, and including any aboriginal hunting or fishing rights that may exist, are hereby extinguished.

(c) All claims against the United States, the State, and all other persons that are based on claims of aboriginal right, title, use, or occupancy of land or water areas in Alaska, or that are based on any statute or treaty of the United States relating to Native use and occupancy, or that are based on the laws of any other nation, including any such claims that are pending before any Federal or state court or the Indian Claims Commission, are hereby extinguished.

The parties agree, and so do we, that § 4(b) extinguished all aboriginal titles as of December 18, 1971, the date the Act was enacted.

A. Section 4(a)

There is disagreement over § 4(a). Appellees argue that it is retroactive, extinguishing aboriginal titles as of the dates of the prior conveyances and tentative approvals of state selections. Appellants read the subsection as being prospective only, so that in post-1971 proceedings the conveyances and selections (and leases thereunder) should be Regarded (through legal legerdemain) as unclouded and valid today even if they were invalid when made. ⁶ Appellants claim that their aboriginal title was not Truly extinguished, however, until 1971. If the Inupiats' aboriginal title was not extinguished until 1971, they arguably have a good cause of action for pre-1971 trespasses; whereas if at the times of entry the oil companies held valid leases from the holders of the valid fee, the entries were not trespassory.

The district court held that § 4(a) was retroactive, and thus that the entries under federal authorization and the conditional state leases (the bulk of all the entries) were not trespasses. 435 F.Supp. at 1022-25. We agree. Both § 4(b) and § 4(c) say that Native interests are "hereby" extinguished; § 4(a) does not, suggesting that it extinguished title as of some past moment. We deem the retroactive interpretation of § 4(a) to be more logical, whereas the prospective interpretation creates a cumbersome legal fiction whose only apparent purpose is to preserve Native trespass claims which (as we hold herein) were immediately extinguished in § 4(c).

If § 4(a) accomplished anything that § 4(b) and § 4(c) did not, it was to validate the state oil leases (as between the state and its lessees) by establishing that the state had good title to lease out. A retroactive reading serves this purpose directly and well; a prospective reading conspicuously fails actually to validate the leases, but instead directs the courts to regard the leases as if they were valid. Between these two readings, the retroactive one is obviously more reasonable.

B. Section 4(c)

Section 4(a), as we read it, had the effect of eliminating most of appellants' trespass claims. We further hold that § 4(c) specifically extinguished All trespass claims.

Without doubt, § 4(c) abolished all Native claims based on the actual "taking" (extinguishment) of aboriginal title. The question presented on appeal is whether or not the district court was correct to say that § 4(c) went farther and extinguished "all claims . . . that are based on . . . aboriginal right" in the sense that the past or present existence of aboriginal title is an element of the claims.

Several passages in the subsection clearly indicate that Congress intended to extinguish more types of claims than merely claims for the "taking" (extinguishment) of aboriginal title. Therefore, we conclude that the district court was correct.

The subsection reads, "All claims against the United States, the State, and all other persons that are based on claims of aboriginal right . . . are hereby extinguished." Since only the United States could extinguish the Natives' aboriginal title, only the United States could be the defendant in a suit based on extinguishment of title. Yet all claims against "the State, and all other persons" were extinguished as well. In order to make the language regarding "the State, and all other persons" meaningful, there is no choice but to construe the statute to extinguish certain types of claims, "based on aboriginal right," that might be brought against the State and other persons. The quintessential action against private citizens, based on aboriginal title, is an action for wrongful invasion, use, and assertion of dominion over the property trespass.

Moreover, such trespass claims might be brought by Natives in "state court," as § 4(c) contemplated, while claims against the United States for extinguishment of title could only be brought in federal court. Further, at the time the Act's language was drafted, no claim based on extinguishment of title was "pending" in any court, yet Congress extinguished all pending claims. Congress must have had in mind claims based on pre-1971 activities.

In short, when Congress said in §§ 2(a) and 4(c) of the Act, 43 U.S.C. §§ 1601(a), 1603(c), that it was settling "all claims," it meant just that. Congress intended to and did extinguish all Native trespass claims based on aboriginal title.

III. LEGISLATIVE HISTORY

To be sure, the strict "plain meaning rule" has been relaxed, and we may examine legislative history to help us construe even seemingly clear statutory language. Doyon, Ltd. v. Bristol Bay Native Corp., 569 F.2d 491, 494 (9th Cir.), Cert. denied, 439 U.S. 954, 99 S.Ct. 352, 58 L.Ed.2d 345 (1978). Such examination, however, does not alter our reading of § 4(c). The House report stated,

Section 4 extinguishes all aboriginal titles in Alaska, and all claims based thereon,

and

The section extinguishing aboriginal titles and claims based on aboriginal title is intended to be applied broadly, and to...