COURT RULES THAT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FAILED TO PROTECT 2.85 MILLION ACRES OF ALABAMA-COUSHATTA LAND IN EAST TEXAS

BOULDER, CO – A three-judge appellate panel of the United States Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C. ruled that the federal government is responsible for a Texas Indian tribe's loss of use of over 2.85 million acres for a 109-year period. The ruling likely ends the first phase of a case filed by the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas in 1984 and means that the United States will have to pay money damages to the Tribe for trespasses on tribal land occurring during the 109-year period. The court said that the federal government had completely failed in its legal duty to protect the Tribe's lands against encroachment by non-Indian settlers during the period from 1845, when Texas became a state, to 1954, when Congress terminated the United States' trust responsibility for the Tribe by transferring it to the State of Texas. The amount of damages will be decided either through court-ordered negotiations over the next sixty days or, if the Tribe and the U.S. cannot agree on a settlement, another court trial. The amount of damages will likely be determined by the value of timber and oil removed from the Tribe's land in nine east-Texas counties, together with the fair market rental value of some of the lands.

Morris Bullock, Chairman of the 500-member Tribe located on a small reservation 17 miles east of Livingston, Texas, applauded the court's decision, saying that it opens the door to a consensual settlement instead of another decade or more of expensive litigation. "Now that the court has clarified that the United States is liable for trespass damages rather than an out-and-out extinguishment of title to our aboriginal lands, we don't see any reason why we can't negotiate a settlement of this case. Its gone on too long already."

The appellate panel's decision replaced an earlier decision issued by the same panel in 1996. The earlier opinion ruled that the Alabama -Coushatta Tribe proved aboriginal title to 6.3 million acres in eleven east-Texas counties (Polk, Tyler, Angelina, Trinity, San Jacinto, Walker, Liberty, Montgomery, Hardin, Jasper, Newton, and part of Orange). The replacement opinion rules that the Tribe did not have aboriginal title in Angelina and part of Jasper counties and that the Tribe therefore proved aboriginal title to only 5.5 million acres. However, because white settlers had dispossessed the Tribe of 2.7 million of those acres before Texas became a State (and the United States thereby assumed the legal duty of protecting the Tribe's land), the federal government could not be held liable for the Tribe's loss of use and possession during the reign of earlier sovereigns. This was so despite the fact that the pre-statehood occupation of the Tribe's land was illegal under the law of the prior sovereigns (Spain, Mexico, and the Republic of Texas), each of which recognized the Tribe's aboriginal title and did nothing to lawfully extinguish it.

Since Congress did not extinguish the Tribe's aboriginal title between 1845, when the United States assumed the duty of protecting the Tribe's lands, and 1954, when it transferred that duty to Texas, the appellate court recommended "that the United States Government pay full monetary compensation to the Tribe for 2,850,028 acres of the Tribe's aboriginal lands illegally occupied by non-Indian settlers after 1845. Damages accrued until 1954, when the United States extinguished its special relationship with the Tribe."

"This ruling is important for two reasons," said Don Miller of the Native American Rights Fund in Boulder, Colorado, one of the attorneys who has represented the Tribe since the suit's inception. "First, it clarifies some confusion created by the earlier opinion. It makes plain that the Tribe's title can only be extinguished by Congress and that Congress did not extinguish the Tribe's aboriginal title between 1845 and 1954. Once-and-for-all, it disposes of the arguments the Government kept raising over and over again to stretch this case out over 16 years." Miller noted that whether the Tribe's aboriginal right to use and occupy these lands was legally extinguished in 1954 or at some more recent time is an issue that has not been raised in, or ruled on, by any court. "Secondly, this ruling is important because it will give Congress the opportunity to resolve with finality all questions related to the validity of land titles in eleven east-Texas counties." Noting that Congress has been active over the last two decades in resolving potentially disruptive Indian claims to possession of lands long thought to legally belong to non-Indians, Miller said "I can't believe that Congress would act to resolve only the Federal Government's liability while leaving state and local governments and innocent private landholders to bear the burden of so many clouded land titles in east-Texas."

Echoing Chairman Bullock's preference for settlement over litigation, another of the Tribe's attorneys, Alan Minter of Austin, Texas, said this ruling "has greatly simplified the legal damages issues and should allow us to agree with the Justice and Interior Departments without another trial on the historical value of timber and oil extracted from the Tribe's lands over the 109-year period. If we can agree on a historical number, that would allow us to get the case before Congress sometime soon."