Free Joint Status Report - District Court of Federal Claims - federal

Case 1:92-cv-00675-ECH

Document 336

Filed 07/01/2008

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IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF FEDERAL CLAIMS CHIPPEWA CREE TRIBE OF THE ROCKY BOY'S RESERVATION, et al., ) ) ) Plaintiffs, ) ) v. ) ) THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) ) Defendant. ) __________________________________________)

No. 92-675 L Judge Emily C. Hewitt July 1, 2008

JOINT STATUS REPORT The parties submit this Joint Status Report (JSR) pursuant to the Court's Order of June 5, 2008 (Doc. # 334). I. BACKGROUND

The Plaintiff Group, consisting of the beneficiaries of the 1964 and 1980 Pembina Judgment Fund ("PJF") Awards and their heirs, descendants, and successors-in-interest, and the Defendant, the United States of America, continue to be engaged in settlement negotiations with the objective of resolving Plaintiffs' PJF trust management claims. II. A. SPECIFIC MATTERS 1964 Award and 1980 Award, Phase I (March 1980 - May, 1988)

These claims have been assigned to Alternative Dispute Resolution ("ADR") proceedings before Judge Eric Bruggink. See Order (¶2) of Aug. 2, 2007 (Doc. # 298). The parties conducted an in-person ADR Settlement Conference on these claims before Judge Bruggink at the United States Courthouse in Montgomery, Alabama on June 23 and 24, 2008. The parties' next ADR session with Judge Bruggink on the 1980 Award Phase I claims is scheduled for August 20 - 21, 2008 at the Court -1-

Case 1:92-cv-00675-ECH

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of Federal Claims in Washington, DC. The parties expect at that session to discuss the scheduling of future ADR sessions regarding the 1964 Award claims. B. 1980 Award Phase II (May 26, 1988 - September 30, 1992)

These claims also are in ADR proceedings before Judge Bruggink. See Orders (¶2) of Nov. 19, 2007 (Doc. # 313) and Jan. 18, 2008 (Doc. # 318). At their second in-person ADR session on the transactional issues for Phase II, which was held at the Court of Federal Claims in Washington, DC on June 10, 2008, the parties made substantial progress. At the June 10, 2008 session, the parties reached an agreement on the Phase II transactional issues that allows settlement discussions to move forward to Phase II investment issues. The parties expect at the August 20 - 21, 2008 ADR session to discuss the scheduling of future ADR sessions regarding the Phase II investment issues. C. 1980 Award Phase III (October 1, 1992 to December 31, 1995)

As previously reported, the parties have been reviewing responsive documents provided in response to document production requests regarding 113 of the 501 jointly-identified potential baseline transactions for this time period. See JSR of June 3, 2008 (Doc. # 333). Pursuant to the Court's Order of June 5, 2008 (Doc. # 334), the parties have taken several next steps on resolving issues related to Plaintiffs' transactional claims for this time period. Defendant provided additional source documents to Plaintiffs on June 6, 2008 which the parties discussed during a conference call on June 13, 2008. Following the June 13th conference call, on June 23, 2008 Plaintiffs provided Defendant with spreadsheets recapitulating and updating the status of the validity of the 113 potential baseline transactions for this time period. Defendants presently are reviewing that information. Defendant also provided additional source documents on June 20, 2008, which Plaintiffs -2-

Case 1:92-cv-00675-ECH

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have reviewed. The parties are in the process of scheduling at least one more conference call on the remaining issues regarding the 113 potential baseline transactions, including the "timing issues" for this time period. In addition, on June 5, 2008 Defendant submitted to Plaintiffs its proposal for extrapolating the results of the work on the 113 potential baseline transactions that were jointly scoped for source document validity testing to the remaining 388 jointly identified potential baseline transactions for this time period. Plaintiffs have reviewed that proposal and at this time are in general agreement with its possible utility with respect to date and amount issues, at least for purposes of continued negotiated settlement efforts for the 1980 Award Phase III. The parties also agree that there likely will need to be agreement on whether and how the resolution of the timing issues for the 113 potential baseline transactions extrapolate to any timing issues identified for the 388 potential baseline transactions. Finally, the parties are in agreement at this time that the 1980 Award Phase III claims (transactional and investment) may be assigned to ADR proceedings before Judge Bruggink and they respectfully request that the Court refer those claims to Judge Bruggink. D. 1980 Award Phase IV (January 1, 1996 to December 31, 2007 or to present)

As reported in the JSR of April 11, 2008 (Doc. # 327), the parties have agreed upon a population of 353 potential baseline transactions for the 1980 Award Phase IV through December 31, 2007. In addition, pursuant to the Court's Order of June 5, 2008 (Doc. # 334) the parties have agreed that 41 of these potential baseline transactions are disbursements for which Plaintiffs may then elect to request source documents. The parties continue to exchange views on a final population of potential baseline receipt transactions for which Plaintiffs may then elect to request source -3-

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documents. The parties also continue to discuss a timeline by which Plaintiffs will request such source documents and Defendant will respond to such request, and the means by which source documents will be requested and produced. Finally, following the last TSC on June 4, 2008, the parties have reached agreement on addressing the "continuing" nature of Phase IV. For the remainder of this calender year (2008), Plaintiffs are willing to forego requesting data and source documents for potential baseline transactions occurring in the PJF after December 31, 2007. In the event that the parties are unable to reach a settlement of Plaintiffs' claims for the 1980 Award by the end of calendar year 2008, the parties promptly will revisit the "continuing" claim issue and attempt to reach agreement on the production of data and source documents for any calendar year 2008 potential baseline transactions.

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Case 1:92-cv-00675-ECH

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Respectfully submitted on this 1st day of July, 2008.

/s/ Melody L. McCoy MELODY L. MCCOY Attorney of Record for Plaintiffs Native American Rights Fund 1506 Broadway Boulder, CO 80302 Tel: (303) 447-8760 Fax (303) 443-7776

/s/ Carol L. Draper CAROL L. DRAPER Attorney of Record for Defendant United States Department of Justice Environment & Natural Resources Division Natural Resources Section P.O. Box 663 Washington, D.C. 20044-0663 Tel: (202) 305-0465 Fax: (202) 353-2021 Of Counsel: Elisabeth C. Brandon Department of the Interior Office of the Solicitor Teresa E. Dawson Department of the Treasury Office of Chief Counsel Financial Management Service

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