United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians

No. 79-639. Argued March 24, 1980. Decided June 30, 1980. 448 U.S. 371.

V

In sum, we conclude that the legal analysis and factual findings of the Court of Claims fully support its conclusion that the terms of the 1877 Act did not effect "a mere change in the form of investment of Indian tribal property." Lone [448 U.S. 424] Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. at 568. Rather, the 1877 Act effected a taking of tribal property, property which had been set aside for the exclusive occupation of the Sioux by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868.

That taking implied an obligation on the part of the Government to make just compensation to the Sioux Nation, and that obligation, including an award of interest, must now, at last, be paid.

The judgment of the Court of Claims is affirmed. It is so ordered.

WHITE, J., concurring MR. JUSTICE WHITE, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.

[United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 U.S. 371 (1980) WHITE, J., concurring]

I agree that there is no constitutional infirmity in the direction by Congress that the Court of Claims consider this case without regard to the defense of res judicata. I also agree that the Court of Claims correctly decided this case. Accordingly, I concur in Parts III and V of the Court's opinion, and in the judgment.

REHNQUIST, J., dissenting MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST, dissenting.

In 1942, the Sioux Tribe filed a petition for certiorari requesting this Court to review the Court of Claims' ruling that Congress had not unconstitutionally taken the Black Hills in 1877, but had merely exchanged the Black Hills for rations and grazing lands -- an exchange Congress believed to be in the best interests of the Sioux and the Nation. This Court declined to review that judgment. Sioux Tribe v. United States, 97 Ct.Cl. 613 (1942), cert. denied, 318 U.S. 789 (1943).

Yet today the Court permits Congress to reopen that judgment which this Court rendered final upon denying certiorari in 1943, and proceeds to reject the 1942 Court of Claims' factual interpretation of the events in 1877. I am convinced that Congress may not constitutionally require the Court of Claims to reopen this proceeding, that there is no judicial principle justifying the decision to afford the respondents an additional [448 U.S. 425] opportunity to litigate the same claim, and that the Court of Claims' first interpretation of the events in 1877 was, by all accounts, the more realistic one. I therefore dissent.

I

In 1920, Congress enacted a special jurisdictional Act, ch. 222, 41 Stat. 738, authorizing the Sioux Tribe to submit any legal or equitable claim against the United States to the Court of Claims. The Sioux filed suit claiming that the 1877 Act removing the Black Hills from the Sioux territory was an unconstitutional taking. In Sioux Tribe v. United States, supra, the Court of Claims considered the question fully and found that the United States had not taken the Black Hills from the Sioux within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment.

It is important to highlight what that court found. It did not decide, as the Court today suggests, that it merely lacked jurisdiction over the claim presented by the Sioux. See ante at 384. It found that, under the circumstances presented in 1877, Congress attempted to improve the situation of the Sioux and the Nation by exchanging the Black Hills for 900,000 acres of grazing lands and rations for as long as they should be needed. The court found that, although the Government attempted to keep white settlers and gold prospectors out of the Black Hills territory, these efforts were unsuccessful.

The court concluded that this situation was such that the Government "believed serious conflicts would develop between the settlers and the Government, and between the settlers and the Indians." 97 Ct.Cl. at 659. It was also apparent to Congress that the Indians were still "incapable of supporting themselves." Ibid. The court found that the Government therefore embarked upon a course designed to obtain the Indians' agreement to sell the Black Hills, and "endeavored in every way possible during 1875 and 1876 to arrive at a mutual agreement with the Indians for the sale. . . ." Id. at 681. Negotiation having failed, Congress then turned to design terms for the acquisition [448 U.S. 426] of the Black Hills which it found to be in the best interest of both the United States and the Sioux.

The court found that, pursuant to the 1877 agreement, Congress provided the Indians with more than $43 million in rations, as well as providing them with 900,000 acres of needed grazing lands. Thus, the court concluded that

"the record shows that the action taken was pursuant to a policy which the Congress deemed to be for the interest of the Indians and just to both parties" Id. at 668.

The court emphasized:

"[T]he Congress, in an act enacted because of the situation encountered and pursuant to a policy which, in its wisdom, it deemed to be in the interest and for the benefit and welfare of the . . . Sioux Tribe, as well as for the necessities of the Government, required the Indians to sell or surrender to the Government a portion of their land and hunting rights on other land in return for that which the Congress, in its judgment, deemed to be adequate consideration for what the Indians were required to give up, which consideration the Government was not otherwise under any legal obligation to pay" Id. at 667.

This Court denied certiorari. 318 U.S. 789 (1943). During the course of further litigation commencing in 1950, the Sioux again resubmitted their claim that the Black Hills were taken unconstitutionally. The Government pleaded res judicata as a defense. The Court of Claims held that res judicata barred relitigation of the question, since the original Court of Claims decision had clearly held that the appropriation of the Black Hills was not a taking, because Congress, in

"exercising its plenary power over Indian tribes, took their land without their consent and substituted for it something conceived by Congress to be an equivalent" United States v. Sioux Nation, 207 Ct.Cl. 234, 243, 518 F.2d 1298, 1303 (1975).

The court found no basis for relieving the Sioux from the bar of res judicata, finding that the disability "is not lifted if a later court disagrees with a prior one." Id. at 244, [448 U.S. 427] 518 F.2d at 1303. The court thus considered the equities entailed by the application of res judicata in this case and held that relitigation was unwarranted. Again, this Court denied certiorari. 423 U.S. 1016 (1975).

Congress then passed another statute authorizing the Sioux to relitigate their taking claim in the Court of Claims. 92 Stat. 153. The statute provided that the Court of Claims "shall review on the merits" the Sioux claim that there was a taking, and that the Court "shall determine that issue de novo." (Emphasis added.) Neither party submitted additional evidence, and the Court of Claims decided the case on the basis of the record generated in the 1942 case and before the Commission.

On the basis of that same record, the Court of Claims has now determined that the facts establish that Congress did not act in the best interest of the Sioux, as the 1942 court found, but arbitrarily appropriated the Black Hills without affording just compensation. This Court now embraces this second, latter-day interpretation of the facts in 1877.

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