[00:00:00] Speaker 00:
Case number 25-5111, Uta Indian Tribe of the Uinta and Uray Indian Reservation, a balance versus United States of America had asked Mr. Rasmussen for the balance, Ms.

[00:00:14] Speaker 00:
Spray for the employees.

[00:00:17] Speaker 03:
Good morning, counsel.

[00:00:18] Speaker 03:
Mr. Rasmussen.

[00:00:19] Speaker 03:
Good morning.

[00:00:21] Speaker 04:
Good morning, your honor.

[00:00:23] Speaker 04:
May it please the court.

[00:00:25] Speaker 04:
My name is Jeffrey Rasmussen.

[00:00:26] Speaker 04:
I am the attorney for the Ute Indian Tribe of the O'Winter and O'Reilly Reservation.

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And with me at council table is co-counsel, Mr. Patterson.

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And also here is a representative from the Tribes Council, Cleveland Murray.

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We are here today on

[00:00:44] Speaker 04:
what could be the last, I think, large Indian law land case in the country.

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And it has a kind of a unique history of why it still is in existence.

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But we are here now to determine whether the tribe had a compensable title to land on that is currently owned by the United States on the tribe's existing reservation.

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And that existing reservation is about 1.9 million acres.

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The United States still owns 1.5 million acres of that land.

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And under the proper interpretation of the 1880 Act that we discussed at length in our brief, the United States was the broker for sale of that land.

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And it had then the duty to place proceeds from those sales of that land that was set apart for the Uncompahgre band into trust.

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The states in Indian law are really very different from the states in English law.

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And as we all learned in law school, there's all sorts of complicated states under English law.

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Indian law has some of that same similarity in that it's really complex.

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But what we have as agreement in this case is if the tribe had what we now refer to as compensable title,

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which is the lowest level of title that a tribe can have, that if it has compensable title, then that land can be restored under the Indian Reorganization Act.

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And so the issue is compensable title.

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And so the United States cites, for example, some dicta from Supreme Court cases where it's talking about ownership.

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That's talking about a different type of title.

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That's talking about trust title.

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And that's not what we're talking about here.

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What we're talking about here is compensable title, the lowest level.

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And so we look at the 1880 act.

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The 1880 act says that the tribe has compensable title.

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It defines it's not using that term because that term is not used at that point in time in 1880.

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But that the tribe has this land will be set apart for the tribe.

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there'll be a boundary for this reservation.

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The president will create this reservation and create a boundary for it.

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And then the land that is so set apart, which is the Uncompahgre Reservation, that land will then be like public lands except for

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that the tribe has the right to the proceeds from the sale.

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And that is then what later becomes, under the Indian Reorganization Act, compensable type.

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That is the definition of it, which is if the United States owns this land and it was a broker for sale of the land to non-Indians, as it was here,

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And then it can't sell the land.

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What do you do with it?

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And the Indian Reorganization Act says, well, if they didn't sell it, they have the authority to give it back to the tribe because it never sold.

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And here, the Yung Kampagri Reservation, as we discussed in our brief, it's a very, very remote area.

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It is probably the most worthless land in the United States.

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as far as agricultural uses, or farming, or irrigable lands.

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We've got 1.9 million acres, and not more than 3% of it is irrigable even.

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None of it can support a crop without irrigation.

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It is barren, high desert rock.

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The United States at the time, that's why they put the Uncompahgre out there.

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But then we found out later that it had oil.

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It had significant oil.

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It had one of the better oil fields in the United States.

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And so the United States said, oh, well, we'll just keep that land.

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We didn't sell it.

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We'll just keep it.

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We'll keep the money from it.

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And that's why we're here.

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The plain meaning of the statute is one of the two central issues in this case.

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Does the statute say that the tribe has the right to the proceeds from the sale of the land that was set apart?

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And the statute just explicitly says that.

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which is we really expected we would be at the other table when we got up to appeal here.

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But when you say the statute of justice explicitly says that, so you're talking about the 1880 Act.

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The 1880 Act, right.

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And for it to explicitly say that, then you'd have to conclude that the relevant corpus of land is not the Colorado land that encompasses the future

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the Utah land had yet to be demarcated.

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I don't think you have to say that.

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What you have to say is that the Uncompahgre was set apart, and when the statute refers to the land so set apart, the tribal life compensable title to the land so set apart, that that then means that if they set apart the Uncompahgre outside of Colorado,

[00:06:17] Speaker 04:
that's the compensable title attaches to that land.

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So the United States really at oral argument in the court below latched onto a footnote in the M opinion that's under review where the M opinion says, you know, this could be more properly understood to refer to the Colorado lands.

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First of all, we don't agree with that, and we discussed that in our brief.

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But second of all, that isn't the issue for the statutory interpretation in this case, because what we're talking about is the statute says the land so set apart, and the president is to send out a commission that find the land that they're going to move the incompatible to.

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And at this point in 1880, and this is where the district court also got confused, at this point in 1880, that's what a reservation is.

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It is a line between the tribe, tribal members, and non-Indians.

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And non-Indians cannot cross that border, and tribal members can't cross that border either.

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It is to separate them.

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And that's what it was in 1880.

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And so the district court pulled in later concepts to talk about what happens

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a generation later, or 10 years later, when we start having this concept of a lava really coming to fruition.

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But in 1880, that is still what a reservation is.

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So the president sets apart the reservation, says, this is the land I'm setting apart under the statute.

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Here it is.

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Move them to that.

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They're moved to that land at gunpoint.

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to this barren rocky land, and they're told, this is your new reservation.

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And that reservation still exists today.

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And it is that reservation that was set apart by the president, and there's no act of Congress that ever revokes that.

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So the land that was set apart is the land that we're talking about here today.

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Whether there would be a right to compensation for land in Colorado, we view as a wholly separate issue then.

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And where the district court then said, well, if it's the land in Colorado, it can't be the land in Utah, we disagree with that.

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Because the statute is referring to the land that is set apart.

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The land that is set apart is that land in Utah.

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So our view is that the statute itself is very, very clear.

[00:08:46] Speaker 02:
But I wanted to also ask you on that point, though, when you look at the text statute, isn't it equally clear that it's talking about Colorado at that point?

[00:08:57] Speaker 04:
No, I don't believe it is equally clear.

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I think that when it's talking about the land that is set apart, it is talking about the land that is going to be set apart for these two reservations, the one down for Southern Ute and the one for the Uncompahgre.

[00:09:09] Speaker 04:
That's the land it's referring to.

[00:09:11] Speaker 02:
There are other provisions that are not- I'm going to ask you, counsel, so I'm clear.

[00:09:16] Speaker 02:
Yeah.

[00:09:16] Speaker 02:
The tribe was in one part of Colorado that it liked very much.

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All right.

[00:09:27] Speaker ?:
Yes.

[00:09:27] Speaker 02:
The government commissioner on Indian affairs wanted to open up that land.

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So it had to find another place for the Indians.

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So it found this other place in Colorado, this barren rock place.

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And that's what the 1880 act is talking about.

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Isn't it?

[00:09:59] Speaker 04:
No.

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I mean, I know it has a reference to Colorado.

[00:10:03] Speaker 02:
Right.

[00:10:06] Speaker 02:
Or elsewhere, but.

[00:10:07] Speaker ?:
Right.

[00:10:08] Speaker 04:
The act itself is referring to not barren land in, but it's referring to the land that is probably one of the more productive agricultural lands in Colorado, where Grand Rapids, Grand Junction is today.

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So it's referring to, we're going to move you to the Grand Junction area or to land in Utah.

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But as everybody is sort of recognized, that was more of a pretense of, oh, we'll move you to Colorado.

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Because when the commission comes out there and looks, they say, oh, there's no agricultural land here in this area that's now farmland in Colorado.

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So we're going to move you to the uncompagrate.

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And that was relatively clear to everybody at the time.

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that that was what was going to happen because the Colorado was adamant that the Utes had to be removed from Colorado.

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And so what we have is there's a reference to land in Colorado or Utah.

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And once that reservation is established there, then that compensable title attaches to that reservation.

[00:11:17] Speaker 02:
And the question is, what does the word there mean?

[00:11:22] Speaker 02:
And you say it means Colorado land.

[00:11:27] Speaker 04:
No, we say that the land, it's the land that is set apart based upon that 1880 act.

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So it is the land that they're going to move the Uncompahgrese to, and they only move the Uncompahgrese in that one time.

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They move them from Colorado to the reservation in Utah, and it is that reservation that is established.

[00:11:49] Speaker 02:
Okay, then I've got the facts wrong.

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I thought the tribe was in Colorado, which was very desirable for the

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a tribe, then the government, the federal government decided it wanted to move the tribe elsewhere in Colorado.

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And it did move the tribe or it expected the tribe to move to Colorado.

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And the tribe basically said, no, no, no, we don't want to go.

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And then Congress came along and authorized the commissioner on Indian affairs to set aside these allotments

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But they were going to be in Idaho.

[00:12:31] Speaker 04:
Utah.

[00:12:32] Speaker 02:
In Utah?

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Yeah.

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So I thought there were three stages here, not just two.

[00:12:41] Speaker 04:
No, there were only the two.

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So they were in the areas in Colorado that was part of their reservation in Colorado.

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The statute said, the 1880 act says,

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We're going to set apart a new reservation for you.

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You're being kicked off this reservation.

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We're going to set apart a new reservation for you and you are going to move to it.

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And then the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, they send out their survey team and they say,

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That new reservation is going to be in Utah.

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It's going to be the Uncompahgre, which is still there today, the Uncompahgre Reservation.

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And that's where they then moved them to.

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And so that is why that is the land that was set apart in compliance with that 1880 act.

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So it was just the two places.

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Colorado, now we're moving you to Utah.

[00:13:26] Speaker 04:
I did want to briefly touch on one other issue besides the plain meaning, and that is the Indian canons.

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And here we've got the 1880 legislative history.

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We've got the 1882 proclamation.

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We've got the 1887 act that is premised on the tribe having a compensable title.

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We have the 1891 and 1892 acts that didn't pass regarding Gilsonite that again are premised on the tribe having a compensable title.

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We have the 1894 Act, which is, again, promised on the tribe having compensable title.

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It says that to allot this land, we're going to have to reach an agreement with the Ute tribe.

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And that's then based upon compensable title.

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We've got the 1897 Act, which doesn't contain the language taking the reservation.

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So in 1880,

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Under the Indian canons, the concept is if there's ambiguity, it's interpreted in favor of the tribe.

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You've got this string of acts right afterwards that is all premised on.

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And the 1880 legislation itself couldn't be clearer.

[00:14:40] Speaker 04:
This is all premised on.

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We can't just take a tribe, make them landless.

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We've got to give them compensation.

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So that's why the tribe also understood

[00:14:53] Speaker 04:
the legislation under the Indian canons to be that they would have a compensable title to this land.

[00:15:00] Speaker 04:
And the United States kind of alludes to Skidmore deference in its brief, doesn't actually talk about it, but does cite it in their standard of review.

[00:15:11] Speaker 04:
This court has held that even the Indian canons, even Trump,

[00:15:17] Speaker 04:
uh chevron deference or trumped chevron deference i guess i should say um and skidmore deference isn't really even a deference uh so again what we've got is the agency is trying to rely on its own analysis rather than the statute and is trying to actually rely on its prior really the core of its argument

[00:15:39] Speaker 04:
really going back to just an anachronism that they previously argued the the uncompagry reservation did not exist.

[00:15:46] Speaker 04:
And then they wouldn't have had to restore it under the IRA.

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If there's not a reservation, it doesn't have to be restored.

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So that was how they got here was that history.

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And now they admit the Uncapagre reservation still exists to this day.

[00:16:02] Speaker 04:
They finally accepted the Utah decisions and that gutted their rationale, but they won't give up because this land has worked a lot of money now.

[00:16:11] Speaker 04:
They didn't think it was.

[00:16:13] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:16:14] Speaker 04:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:16:15] Speaker 03:
Make sure my colleagues don't have questions, additional questions this time.

[00:16:17] Speaker 03:
We will give you a little time for rebuttal.

[00:16:19] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:16:26] Speaker 01:
May it please the court, Mary Gabrielle Sprague for the United States.

[00:16:31] Speaker 01:
The statute that Mr. Rasmussen is describing is not the 1880 act that was passed by Congress.

[00:16:42] Speaker 01:
Just to begin with the fundamental question Judge Rogers asked about.

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the scheme.

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She's absolutely correct.

[00:16:50] Speaker 01:
The Utes were in the mountains of Colorado.

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This area near Grand Junction, Colorado at the confluence of the Colorado River and the Gunnison River was at the western end of what they claimed to be their homeland.

[00:17:04] Speaker 01:
And they were satisfied to go to that area which had fertile land for farming.

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That was their expectation from all evidence.

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That was Congress's expectation.

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There were people calling to remove all the utes from Colorado and send them to Utah or elsewhere.

[00:17:27] Speaker 01:
But that's not what Congress decided.

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Presumptively, the uncompagre ban could remain in Colorado where they wanted to be.

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What they expected was what the 1880 act provides, which is that the commissioners, first of all, who are appointed by the president, would do a census of all the members of the band according to the 1880 act.

[00:17:57] Speaker 01:
Depending on your age and your family status, you got certain acreages for your allotment, either 160 acres or 80 acres.

[00:18:07] Speaker 01:
So with the census and this specification of the acreage for allotments,

[00:18:12] Speaker 01:
the commissioners could decide how much land they needed.

[00:18:16] Speaker 01:
They would then look for that land, presumptively for the Uncompahgre in the Grand Junction area, but if not, then in Utah.

[00:18:27] Speaker 01:
And the land that was to be set apart was enough land, sufficient land,

[00:18:35] Speaker 01:
for the acreage needed for these allotments.

[00:18:40] Speaker 01:
And then once that land, the sufficient acreage for these allotments was set apart, then they would draw the internal boundary lines and assign the different parcels to the different members.

[00:18:52] Speaker 01:
The other

[00:18:54] Speaker 01:
type of land that was to be set apart were relatively small parcels for agency buildings, schools and such that would support this new agricultural community of Uncompahgre.

[00:19:10] Speaker 01:
Indians.

[00:19:12] Speaker 01:
So that was the scheme.

[00:19:14] Speaker 01:
That is what is written into the statute.

[00:19:18] Speaker 01:
It came as a surprise to the band that they were going to be relocated to Utah.

[00:19:26] Speaker 01:
And this was a result in 1881.

[00:19:29] Speaker 01:
The commissioners looked around.

[00:19:31] Speaker 01:
They said there was not sufficient land

[00:19:34] Speaker 01:
where they wanted to live in Colorado.

[00:19:36] Speaker 01:
The tribe has called that a fraud in any event.

[00:19:41] Speaker 01:
But in writing this report, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the Secretary of the Interior said, well,

[00:19:49] Speaker 01:
We're going to take up to Utah, but it's rough going there.

[00:19:55] Speaker 01:
And so we're going to set apart a larger parcel of land within which these allotments that would be made.

[00:20:03] Speaker 01:
It has been a consistent position of the Department of the Interior that that executive order reservation was a temporary

[00:20:15] Speaker 01:
uh arrangement to allow the to get settled in the land to be allotted.

[00:20:24] Speaker 01:
Um now the 1880 act is all about allotment.

[00:20:33] Speaker 01:
Nowhere in the act does it say that a new replacement reservation would be provided for the

[00:20:43] Speaker 01:
was to terminate the common ownership of a tribe for its members and replace it with individual parcels for the members, individual allotments.

[00:20:56] Speaker 01:
And this scheme has twice been described by the Supreme Court interpreting the 1880 act.

[00:21:08] Speaker 01:
in 1947 in confederated bands of youth Indians versus United States and in 1971 in the Southern United States versus Southern Newt tribe or band of Indians.

[00:21:29] Speaker 01:
Confederated bands is 330 US 169.

[00:21:32] Speaker 01:
The Southern Newt case is 402 US

[00:21:36] Speaker 01:
159 and both of those cases surveying the history of the Colorado reservation and interpreting the 1880 act held at the confederated bands held compensable title only to the 1868 treaty reservation.

[00:21:59] Speaker 01:
As we said in our brief, quoting, the only lands for which Congress agreed in 1880 to compensate the Indians were those that the title to which the Indians then released and conveyed to the United States.

[00:22:14] Speaker 01:
They could only release and convey the lands that belong to them and only the lands given to them by the original 1868 treaty belong to them.

[00:22:25] Speaker 01:
And on the tribe's point of the applicability of the Indian canon, it's well established that that does not change.

[00:22:36] Speaker 01:
It cannot be used to change the clear meaning of Congress.

[00:22:41] Speaker 01:
And the Supreme Court held that the 1880 Act

[00:22:46] Speaker 01:
was clear and said at page 179, their alleged understanding can't be imputed to Congress in the face of plain language and a rather full legislative history indicating that the 1880 act neither conveyed nor ratified conveyance of these lands.

[00:23:07] Speaker 01:
While it has long been the rule that a treaty with Indians is to be construed so as to carry out the government's obligation in accordance with the fair understanding of the Indians, we cannot, under the guise of interpretation, create presidential authority where there was none nor rewrite congressional acts so as to make them mean something they obviously were not intended to mean.

[00:23:30] Speaker 01:
The tribe's premises, it puts forward, of how this act

[00:23:35] Speaker 01:
Operates is simply in correct.

[00:23:42] Speaker 01:
Their premise is that.

[00:23:48] Speaker 01:
the act-directed land to be set apart for the uncompagre band in Utah for a reservation.

[00:23:57] Speaker 01:
There is no statement to that effect in the act.

[00:24:02] Speaker 01:
It was all about allotments.

[00:24:04] Speaker 01:
It was terminating tribal ownership, replacing it with individual ownership.

[00:24:10] Speaker 01:
The tribe says it replied, brief 12, that the concept of allotment was vaguely referenced in the act.

[00:24:19] Speaker 01:
That's just not true.

[00:24:21] Speaker 01:
The agreement details the specifications of the allotment.

[00:24:26] Speaker 01:
As I said, the census to be taken, how many acres of agricultural land, how many acres of grazing land, depending on your age and family status, the only reservation

[00:24:39] Speaker 01:
reference to reservations in that act were to the Colorado Treaty Reservation and to the Uinta Reservation, which is west of the Uncompahgre Reservation in Utah, which is where the White River Utes

[00:24:55] Speaker 01:
were being relocated.

[00:24:57] Speaker 01:
The White River Utes were blamed for the Meeker Massacre and Congress decided they would be removed from Colorado and relocated on the Uinta Valley reservation and given allotments there.

[00:25:11] Speaker 01:
But otherwise, the uncompagry were going to stay presumptively, the Southern Utes would stay presumptively because of later history that we can't

[00:25:21] Speaker 01:
get into today, the Southern Ute still occupy the south part of Colorado along with the Ute Mountain Ute.

[00:25:35] Speaker 01:
And the land, the second part of their premise is false, is that the land that was to be set apart, these allotments, were not going to be sold.

[00:25:45] Speaker 01:
The point was those were the lands, they weren't going to be sold by the government.

[00:25:50] Speaker 01:
Those were the lands that the individual members would keep.

[00:25:54] Speaker 01:
And again, the 1880 Act

[00:25:56] Speaker 01:
specifies how that land would be managed.

[00:26:00] Speaker 01:
Those allotments would be inalienable for 25 years.

[00:26:05] Speaker 01:
That's to allow for the time for the supposed transition to civilization agricultural life.

[00:26:13] Speaker 01:
The act provides that after 25 years, and that would require apparently legislation to provide for patenting, after 25 years, the individual members would get fee patents from the government.

[00:26:29] Speaker 01:
At that point,

[00:26:30] Speaker 01:
the members could then sell their land if they wished and the members would keep the money but there's nothing anywhere in the act that says land would be set apart for the band.

[00:26:44] Speaker 01:
If that land were sold, it would then go to the band.

[00:26:55] Speaker 01:
many other details of Mr. Rasmussen's presentation and the tribes brief that I

[00:27:07] Speaker 01:
believe are incorrect.

[00:27:08] Speaker 01:
I'd like to point out one that's not as apparent.

[00:27:11] Speaker 01:
So in the reply brief, Mr. Rasmussen was talking about the 1894 Act, which is an act which provided, because the original allotment didn't proceed as expected, Congress again in 1894 passed an allotment act for the Uncompahgre Reservation.

[00:27:36] Speaker 01:
And in the reply brief, it argues that the 1894 Act, section 22, directed the commission to be appointed by the president to seek an agreement through which the tribe would relinquish all interest in the land on the Uncompahgre reservation.

[00:27:56] Speaker 01:
This is in the reply brief, page 22, talking about section 22 of the 1894 Act.

[00:28:03] Speaker 01:
And that is at 28 Stat 337.

[00:28:09] Speaker 01:
As Mr. Rasmussen said today, that supports the idea that if you had to get the band's agreement for the allotment and the disposition of the unallotted lands, that suggests an understanding that the tribe had a compensable title.

[00:28:30] Speaker 01:
But Section 22,

[00:28:33] Speaker 01:
expressly applies only to the Uinta Indian Reservation, the area to the west of the Uncompahgrey Reservation.

[00:28:42] Speaker 01:
It says nothing about the Uncompahgrey Reservation.

[00:28:46] Speaker 01:
And as we explained in the brief, the Uinta Reservation, there is trust title, beneficial title, compensable title.

[00:28:54] Speaker 01:
They're all the same thing for this purpose because there was an 1864 statute

[00:29:00] Speaker 01:
that confirmed the 1861 executive order.

[00:29:05] Speaker 01:
So setting aside the Uinta Valley Reservation.

[00:29:08] Speaker 01:
So there's no question the Uinta Valley Reservation required that there was this title, but

[00:29:18] Speaker 01:
The 1894 Act, sections 20 and 21 address the uncompagre reservation.

[00:29:27] Speaker 01:
And there is not one word in those sections requiring any agreement by the ban for either the allotment

[00:29:36] Speaker 01:
or for the disposition of the unallotted lands.

[00:29:40] Speaker 01:
And that's because Congress knew of the difference between the Uinta reservation and the Uncompahgre reservation.

[00:29:48] Speaker 01:
The Uinta, they had beneficial title, trust title, compensable title.

[00:29:53] Speaker 01:
The Uncompahgre reservation, they were never granted that.

[00:29:57] Speaker 03:
Let me make sure my colleagues don't have any questions on that score or any other that you've gone over.

[00:30:04] Speaker 03:
Okay.

[00:30:05] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:30:06] Speaker 03:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:30:08] Speaker 03:
Mr. Rasmussen will give you two minutes for a rebuttal.

[00:30:11] Speaker 04:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:30:18] Speaker 04:
The key, one of the key errors in the United States argument is their argument basically that the 1880 act accomplished allotment.

[00:30:27] Speaker 04:
It did not.

[00:30:29] Speaker 04:
It contemplated subsequent acts of Congress.

[00:30:31] Speaker 04:
And as we cited, I believe it's page 201 of that statute.

[00:30:35] Speaker 04:
It contemplated that allotment would only occur after there were these subsequent statutes.

[00:30:41] Speaker 04:
Allotment wasn't a thing in 1880.

[00:30:43] Speaker 04:
This was, Ute was kind of, oh, we're trying to flesh out how we'll do this.

[00:30:48] Speaker 04:
1887, Congress passes a law for allotment, the General Allotment Act.

[00:30:54] Speaker 04:
Then Congress then says, go to the Utes and see if you can get an agreement to get them to relinquish their homeland in Utah.

[00:31:05] Speaker 04:
So that, as we discussed on our brief, Supreme Court has always said, well,

[00:31:11] Speaker 04:
Congress was always intending to get rid of tribes completely, the whole of United States history until, well, almost until the 1950s, 1960s.

[00:31:21] Speaker 04:
So that was, but we'll never interpret the act of Congress to do that until there's an act of Congress that actually does it.

[00:31:31] Speaker 04:
And that's why in the 10th Circuit,

[00:31:34] Speaker 04:
The United States made this argument about the 1894 Act, and the 10th Circuit rejected it and said, no, that isn't sufficient.

[00:31:42] Speaker 04:
They had the land, and this 1894 Act is not sufficient.

[00:31:47] Speaker 04:
This 1897 Act is not sufficient.

[00:31:50] Speaker 04:
And so those were based upon the contemplation that the tribe had the compensable title to that land.

[00:32:01] Speaker 04:
The United States keeps saying this was a temporary arrangement.

[00:32:05] Speaker 04:
But that point is that Congress may have thought in 1880 it was a temporary arrangement, but they never then passed the subsequent legislation that was required to take it.

[00:32:15] Speaker 04:
And that's why the tribe still has that compensable title to that land to this day, because it was set apart for them.

[00:32:22] Speaker 04:
And under the Indian canons, given that

[00:32:25] Speaker 04:
The United States is quibbling about the 1894 act.

[00:32:27] Speaker 04:
But given all the other acts that they don't dispute, before that, that were based upon the tribe having compensable title, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs saying the tribe had compensable title in 1892, for this court to say it's clear that the tribe did not have compensable title,

[00:32:44] Speaker 04:
When everybody back then, the learned people studying this said that the tribe did have compensable title for those first 12 years at least, even if the United States were right about 1894 and we don't believe they are, that would be under the Indian canons of construction, the required analysis.

[00:33:01] Speaker 03:
Thank you, council.

[00:33:02] Speaker 03:
Thank you to both council.

[00:33:03] Speaker 03:
We'll take this case under submission.