Nez Perce v. Salazar
Attorney: Melody McCoy, Don Wharton, John Echohawk

Case Update

NARF represents forty-one plaintiffs - - the Nez Perce Tribe; the Mescalero Apache Tribe; the Tule River Indian Tribe; the Hualapai Tribe; the Klamath Tribes; the Yurok Tribe; the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribe; the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma; the Sac and Fox Nation; the Santee Sioux Tribe of Nebraska; the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska; Aleut Community of St. Paul Island; Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians; Bois Forte Band of Chippewa; Cachil Dehe Band of Wintun Indians of Colusa Rancheria; Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes; Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians; Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians; Kaibab Paiute Tribe; Kenaitze Indian Tribe; Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas; Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Ojibwe; Lac Du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa; Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe; Minnesota Chippewa Tribe; Native Village of Atka; Noocksack Indian Tribe; Prairie Island Indian Community; Pueblo of Zia; Qawalangin Tribe; Rincon Luiseno Band of Indians; Samish Indian Nation; San Luis Rey Indian Water Authority; Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa; Shoalwater Bay Tribe; Skokomish Tribe; Spirit Lake Dakotah Nation; Spokane Tribe; Summit Lake Paiute Tribe; Tulalip Tribes; and, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, in an action in the federal district court for the District of Columbia seeking full and complete accountings of their trust funds. Such accountings never have been provided by the federal government which is the trustee for the funds.

Pending before the Court is the government's motion to dismiss the action for lack of jurisdiction, which the Tribes have opposed. A ruling on that is expected at any time. In the meantime, we have been working with appointees of President Obama on his campaign promise to resolve equitably all Indian trust fund mismanagement litigation against the federal government, by beginning settlement negotiations in this case and the other tribal trust fund mismanagement cases. Since April 2010, NARF attorneys, along with the attorneys for 75 other Tribes litigating trust accounting and mismanagement claims, have had many meetings hosted by the President's appointees in Washington, D.C. in preparation for settlement negotiations which are expected to commence later this year. In 2011, the government provided these Tribes with never-before provided trust account data that the Tribes are now reviewing and analyzing.

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