United States v. Jim/Opinion of the Court

[p80] PER CURIAM.

The motion of the Navajo Tribe of Indians for leave to file a brief as amicus curiae in No. 71-1509, is granted.

These cases are here on appeal from a judgment of the District Court for the District of Utah that declared an Act of Congress to be unconstitutional. Jurisdiction in this Court is conferred by 28 U.S.C. §§ 1252 and 2101 (a).

In 1933, the Congress withdrew certain lands in Utah, known as the "Aneth Extension," from the public domain and added them to the Navajo Reservation. Though no oil or gas was believed to be located on these lands, it was provided that should such mineral resources be produced in commercial quantities, "37½ per centum of the net royalties accruing therefrom derived from tribal leases shall be paid to the State of Utah: Provided, That said 37½ per centum of said royalties shall be expended by the State of Utah in the tuition of Indian children [p81] in white schools and/or in the building or maintenance of roads across the lands described in section 1 hereof, or for the benefit of the Indians residing therein." 47 Stat. 1418. The remaining 62½% of the royalties generated by any such tribal mineral leases were, by implication, to go to the Navajo tribe.

After the passage of the Act, oil and gas were discovered on the Aneth Extension, and royalties were divided pursuant to the statute. The State of Utah created an Indian Affairs Commission to manage and expend the funds received by the State under the Act. As time went on, the language of the 1933 Act came to create administrative problems regarding the expenditure of the funds channelled through the State. A report of the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs noted in 1967 that the word "tuition" in the 1933 Act had created uncertainty as to the breadth of the educational program the State was authorized to finance from the royalty funds. The report also noted a difficulty in discerning precisely who was properly a beneficiary of the funds, since "many Navajo families do not live permanently within the lands set aside in 1933, but move back and forth between this area and other locations." S. Rep. No. 710, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1967).

To make the administration of these funds more flexible and to spread the benefits of the royalties more broadly among the Navajo community, the Congress enacted a statute in 1968 that directed the State to expend the 37½% of royalties "for the health, education, and general welfare of the Navajo Indians residing in San Juan County." 82 Stat. 121. This statutory change expanded the pool of beneficiaries substantially, and a class action was brought on behalf of the residents of the Aneth Extension, seeking inter alia a declaration that the statute was an unconstitutional taking of property without just compensation. The District Court concluded that the [p82] 1933 Act vested certain property rights in the plaintiffs, and held the 1968 Act, with its changed pool of beneficiaries, to be unconstitutional.^[1]

The judgment of the District Court is in error. Congress in 1933 did not create constitutionally protected property rights in the appellees. The Aneth Extension was added to a tribal reservation, and the lease which give rise to mineral royalties are tribal leases. It is settled that "[w]hatever title the Indians have is in the tribe, and not in the individuals, although held by the tribe for the common use and equal benefit of all the members." Cherokee Nation v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 294, 307; Delaware Indians v. Cherokee Nation, 193 U.S. 127, 136. To be sure, the 1933 Act established a pattern of distribution which benefited the appellees more than other Indians on the Navajo Reservation.^[2] But it was well within the power of Congress to alter that distributional scheme.^[3] In Gritts v. Fisher, 224 U.S. 640, this Court approved a congressional enlargement of the pool of Indians who were to benefit from a distribution of tribal property. There, too, an earlier statute had established a more limited entitlement.

"But it is said that the act of 1902 contemplated that they [the beneficiaries under the first enactment] alone should receive allotments and be the participants in the distribution of the remaining lands, and also of the funds, of the tribe. No doubt [p83] such was the purport of the act. But that, in our opinion, did not confer upon them any vested right such as would disable Congress from thereafter making provision for admitting newly born members of the tribe to the allotment and distribution. The difficulty with the appellants' contention is that it treats the act of 1902 as a contract, when 'it is only an act of Congress and can have no greater effect.'... It was but an exertion of the administrative control of the Government over the tribal property of tribal Indians, and was subject to change by Congress...." Id., at 648.

Congress has not deprived the Navajo of the benefits of mineral deposits on their tribal lands. It has merely chosen to re-allocate the 37½% of royalties which flow through the State in a more efficient and equitable manner. This was well within the power of Congress to do. As no "property," in a Fifth Amendment sense, was conferred upon residents of the Aneth Extension by the 1933 Act, no violation of the Fifth Amendment was effected by the 1968 legislation. The judgment of the District Court is

Reversed.

Notes

1. The decision of the District Court is unreported.
2. While the 1933 Act remained in effect, the District Court properly insisted that the Utah State Indian Affairs Commission comply with the statutory formula for disbursements. See Sakezzie v. Utah Indian Affairs Comm'n, 198 F.Supp. 218 (declaratory judgment); 215 F.Supp. 12 (supplemental relief).
3. We intimate no view as to the rights a tribe might have if Congress were to deprive it of the value of mineral royalties generated by tribal lands.