U.S. Will Settle Indian (native American) Lawsuit for $3.4 Billion

[groovedaddy]

WASHINGTON — The federal government announced on Tuesday that it intends to pay $3.4 billion to settle claims that it has mismanaged the revenue in American Indian trust funds, potentially ending one of the largest and most complicated class-action lawsuits ever brought against the United States.

The tentative agreement, reached late Monday, would resolve a 13-year-old lawsuit over hundreds of thousands of land trust accounts that date to the 19th century. Specialists in federal tribal law described the lawsuit as one of the most important in the history of legal disputes involving the government’s treatment of American Indians.

President Obama hailed the agreement as an “important step towards a sincere reconciliation” between the federal government and American Indians, many of whom, he said, considered the protracted lawsuit a “stain” on the nation.

As a presidential candidate, Mr. Obama said, “I pledged my commitment to resolving this issue, and I am proud that my administration has taken this step today.”

For the agreement to become final, Congress must enact legislation and the federal courts must then sign off on it. Administration officials said they hoped those two steps would be completed in the next few months.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/us/09tribes.html?th&emc=th

[MrCoffee]

1. This is a huge deal

This is a gigantic cluster-fuck of a lawsuit, and Interior has no clue as to the actual value of the land trust accounts...they mismanaged it so badly that they don't even know what they have.

This settlement is important.