Leatrice Tanner-Brown v. Debra Haaland

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued May 9, 2024 Decided June 25, 2024

No. 22-5302

LEATRICE TANNER-BROWN, PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE OF

THE ESTATE OF GEORGE W. CURLS, SR., AND OF THE CLASS OF

SIMILARLY SITUATED INDIVIDUALS AND HARVEST INSTITUTE

FREEDMEN FEDERATION, LLC, ON BEHALF OF ITSELF AND ALL

PERSONS SIMILARLY SITUATED,

APPELLANTS

v.

DEBRA A. HAALAND, SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR AND TARA

MACLEAN SWEENEY, ASSISTANT SECRETARY INDIAN AFFAIRS,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:21-cv-00565)

Percy Squire argued the cause and filed the briefs for

appellants.

Benjamin W. Richmond, Attorney, U.S. Department of

Justice, argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief

were Todd Kim, Assistant Attorney General, and William B.

Lazarus and John L. Smeltzer, Attorneys.

2

Before: HENDERSON, MILLETT and CHILDS, Circuit

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge HENDERSON.

KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge: Appellant

Leatrice Tanner-Brown is a descendant of people enslaved by

the Cherokee Tribe and emancipated at the end of the Civil

War. Her grandfather, George Curls, received land allotments

as a minor. Tanner-Brown and the Harvest Institute Freedman

Federation, LLC (HIFF) brought suit seeking various remedies

related to the allotments, including an accounting from the

Secretary of the Interior arising from the alleged creation of a

trust relationship between the federal government and Indian

beneficiaries.

The district court dismissed the case for lack of standing,

finding that Tanner-Brown failed to establish that she was

injured by not receiving an accounting on the ground that there

was no trust relationship between Curls and the federal

government and that HIFF failed to satisfy the requirements for

associational standing. Although HIFF cannot sustain

standing, Tanner-Brown has alleged a concrete injury-in-fact

sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.

We affirm the district court in part, reverse in part and remand

the case for further proceedings.

I. BACKGROUND

Before and during the Civil War, the Seminole, Cherokee,

Choctaw, Creek and Chickasaw Tribes kept slaves and allied

with the Confederacy. Tanner-Brown v. Haaland, 2022 WL

2643556, at *1 (D.D.C. July 8, 2022) (Tanner-Brown I) (citing

Compl. ¶ 13); see also Cherokee Nation v. Nash, 267 F. Supp.

3d 86, 97 (D.D.C. 2017). These tribes, residing in the southern

3

United States, were sometimes called the “Five Civilized

Tribes”; we use the term “Five Tribes” herein. See Cherokee

Nation, 267 F. Supp. 3d at 90 n.3. After the Civil War, the

United States entered into a series of treaties that, among other

things, abolished slavery in the Five Tribes and provided

certain rights (including property rights) for the formerly

enslaved people (known as “Freedmen”). Tanner-Brown I,

2022 WL 2643556, at *1.

In 1898, the Congress enacted the Curtis Act, 30 Stat. 495,

which allotted the land of the Five Tribes with certain

restrictions to specific groups of individuals with some

enslavement history. Ten years later, the Congress enacted the

law that is central to this case. Act of May 27, 1908, 35 Stat.

312 (the 1908 Act); see Tanner-Brown I, 2022 WL 2643556,

at *2.

Section 1 of the 1908 Act provides: “All lands, including

homesteads, of said allottees enrolled as intermarried whites,

as freedmen, and as mixed-blood Indians having less than half

Indian blood including minors shall be free from all

restrictions.” 1908 Act § 1 (emphasis added); see Plains Com.

Bank v. Long Fam. Land & Cattle Co., 554 U.S. 316, 331

(2008).1

Section 2 provides that lands “from which restrictions

have not been removed may be leased” by the adult allottee or,

if the allottee is a “minor or incompetent,” by a “guardian or

curator” on the allottee’s behalf. 1908 Act § 2.

1

“[E]nrolled” refers to the process of securing tribal

membership, one means of establishing an individual’s status as a

Native American and/or his tribal identification. 42 C.J.S. Indians

§ 21.

4

Section 6 provides in relevant part:

That the persons and property of minor allottees

of the Five Civilized Tribes shall, except as

otherwise specifically provided by law, be

subject to the jurisdiction of the probate courts

of the State of Oklahoma. The Secretary of the

Interior is hereby empowered, under rules and

regulations to be prescribed by him, to appoint

such local representatives within the State of

Oklahoma who shall be citizens of that State or

now domiciled therein as he may deem

necessary to inquire into and investigate the

conduct of guardians or curators having in

charge the estates of such minors, and whenever

such representative or representatives of the

Secretary of the Interior shall be of [the] opinion

that the estate of any minor is not being properly

cared for by the guardian or curator, or that the

same is in any manner being dissipated or

wasted or being permitted to deteriorate in value

by reason of the negligence or carelessness or

incompetency of the guardian or curator, said

representative or representatives of the

Secretary of the Interior shall have power and it

shall be their duty to report said matter in full to

the proper probate court and take the necessary

steps to have such matter fully investigated, and

go to the further extent of prosecuting any

necessary remedy, either civil or criminal, or

both, to preserve the property and protect the

interests of said minor allottees; and it shall be

the further duty of such representative or

representatives to make full and complete

reports to the Secretary of the Interior.

5

Id. § 6.

The Supreme Court has held that Sections 2 and 6 of the

1908 Act apply to the allotments of minors, notwithstanding

the language in Section 1 removing restrictions from the

allotments held by minor Freedmen. Truskett v. Closser, 236

U.S. 223, 229 (1915).

Appellant Leatrice Tanner-Brown is the granddaughter

and personal representative of the estate of George Curls, who

was the son of former Cherokee slaves and was enrolled as a

Cherokee Freedman when he was five years old. Tanner-

Brown I, 2022 WL 2643556, at *3. She alleges that her

grandfather received forty-acre and twenty-acre allotment

deeds from the Cherokee Tribe when he was a minor and that

the allotments were leased for oil and gas drilling that

generated substantial revenue. According to her complaint, the

restriction against alienation of Curls’ allotments (and all

Freedmen allotments) were not removed by the 1908 Act so

that any funds derived from the allotments should have been

accounted for by the U.S. Department of the Interior (Interior)

pursuant to Sections 2 and 6. She further alleges, however, that

Interior has no record of these funds.

Appellant Harvest Institute Freedmen’s Federation (HIFF)

is a limited liability company created to “vindicat[e] the rights

and interests of [] Freedmen.” Compl. ¶ 9. It names Tanner-

Brown as a member and purports to represent other members

who are “representatives of other now deceased Freedmen with

a direct personal stake in receipt of damages for breach of

fiduciary duties owed to them by Defendants.” Id. HIFF does

not identify any members other than Tanner-Brown.

Tanner-Brown and HIFF have filed multiple lawsuits over

the past decade on behalf of Freedmen and minor Freedmen.

In 2014, they filed a putative class action on behalf of

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descendants of Freedmen minor allottees of the Five Tribes,

alleging that the Interior Secretary breached his fiduciary duty

as to the allotments. Tanner-Brown v. Jewell, 153 F. Supp. 3d

102, 104 (D.D.C. 2016). The district court dismissed the suit

for lack of Article III standing, finding that (1) Tanner-Brown

failed to plead a concrete injury because she brought suit only

in her personal capacity as a descendant of Curls and her

hereditary relationship was insufficient to establish injury; (2)

even if Tanner-Brown had standing, the complaint failed to

allege that Curls had ever suffered a concrete, traceable injury

because it did not allege that his specific allotments had oil or

gas leases or any royalties therefrom; and (3) HIFF failed to

plead associational standing adequately because it provided no

information about its members. Id. at 109-13. We affirmed the

district court’s ruling. Tanner-Brown v. Zinke, 709 F. App’x

17 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (per curiam), cert. denied 139 S. Ct. 171

(2018).

Tanner-Brown and HIFF filed this suit in March 2021,

using a theory similar to that in the 2014 suit and alleging that

the Interior Secretary breached fiduciary duties under Section

6 of the 1908 Act. They sought class certification, a declaratory

judgment, an order directing defendants to provide plaintiffs an

accounting and attorneys’ fees. See Tanner-Brown I, 2022 WL

2643556, at *1 n.1 (noting large portions of the 2021 complaint

are “identical” to the 2014 complaint).

The district court dismissed for lack of standing. It found

that Tanner-Brown provided the “necessary link” to Curls by

alleging that she is the personal representative of his estate and

focused its inquiry on Curls’ alleged injury-in-fact. Id.

(quoting Zinke, 709 F. App’x at 20). The court held that the

complaint failed to allege a concrete and particularized injury

traceable to the defendants because it did not allege that Curls’

leases were being mismanaged or provide any basis for

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believing that “had Defendants fulfilled their purported

statutory duty, Mr. Curls would have received royalties or at

least royalties in a greater amount than any that he did receive.”

Id. (quoting Jewell, 153 F. Supp. 3d at 110 n.5). The court also

found that HIFF lacked standing because it failed to show two

of the three requirements for associational standing: (1) that its

members would have standing to sue in their own right and (2)

that the participation of individual members in the lawsuit was

not required for the claim asserted or relief requested. Id. at

*6-7.

After the district court’s dismissal, the plaintiffs moved to

alter or amend the judgment pursuant to Rule 59(e), arguing

based on common-law principles of trust law that they “cannot

assert an injury sufficient to establish standing because a trust

beneficiary must first receive an accounting before determining

whether a trust has been mismanaged” and that “trust

beneficiaries are entitled to an accounting regardless of

whether an injury has been shown.” Tanner-Brown v.

Haaland, 639 F. Supp. 3d 1, 5 (D.D.C. 2022) (Tanner-Brown

II). The district court found that plaintiffs’ arguments

amounted to a new version of their standing argument;

nevertheless, it considered the merits “for purposes of

facilitating the resolution of th[e] case” and rejected the new

arguments as meritless. Id. It concluded that the plaintiffs

failed to show that the 1908 Act creates a trust relationship

between the plaintiffs and the Interior Secretary because

Section 6 suggests the Secretary’s accounting duties are

discretionary and should not be read to create a trust

relationship in the absence of any specific language indicating

congressional intent to do so. Id. at 6-7. This appeal followed.

8

II. STANDING

“We review the district court’s standing determinations de

novo.” Williams v. Lew, 819 F.3d 466, 471 (D.C. Cir. 2016).

The “irreducible constitutional minimum of standing” requires

that the plaintiff suffer an injury in fact fairly traceable to the

challenged conduct of the defendant that can likely be

redressed by a favorable judicial decision. Lujan v. Defenders

of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61 (1992).

“The plaintiff bears the burden of invoking the court’s

subject matter jurisdiction, including establishing the elements

of standing.” Arpaio v. Obama, 797 F.3d 11, 19 (D.C. Cir.

2015) (citing Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561). We accept the factual

allegations in the plaintiffs’ complaint as true and draw all

reasonable inferences from those facts in their favor. Humane

Soc’y of the U.S. v. Vilsack, 797 F.3d 4, 8 (D.C. Cir. 2015).

A. Tanner-Brown’s Standing

Tanner-Brown’s theory of standing is premised on the

alleged creation of a trust relationship and attendant fiduciary

duties between the Interior Secretary and the minor allottees

under Section 6 of the 1908 Act. She argues that Curls was

injured by the Secretary’s failure to provide an accounting of

the allotment, an injury that runs to her as the representative of

Curls’ estate.

At the outset, the government maintains that this version

of Tanner-Brown’s injury-in-fact argument is forfeited because

she raised it in her Rule 59(e) motion after the district court’s

dismissal. But the forfeiture doctrine operates in our judicial

system to avoid (1) surprise to litigants should an issue be

decided on appeal “upon which they have had no opportunity

to introduce evidence” and (2) the “[e]normous confusion and

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interminable delay [that] would result if counsel were

permitted to appeal upon points not presented to the court

below.” District of Columbia v. Air Fla., Inc., 750 F.2d 1077,

1084-85 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (first quoting Hormel v. Helvering,

312 U.S. 552, 556 (1941); then quoting Johnston v. Reily, 160

F.2d 249, 250 (D.C. Cir. 1947)). These concerns are eliminated

if the district court has in fact considered the new claim. See,

e.g., Lebron v. Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp., 513 U.S. 374, 379

(1995) (“even if this were a claim not raised by petitioner

below, we would ordinarily feel free to address it, since it was

addressed by the court below” (emphasis omitted)); Cmty.

House, Inc. v. City of Boise, 490 F.3d 1041, 1054 (9th Cir.

2007) (“even if a party fails to raise an issue in the district court,

we generally will not deem the issue waived if the district court

actually considered it”). The government has had a full

opportunity to respond to the plaintiffs’ argument, both in the

Rule 59(e) proceedings and now on appeal. We agree that it

conserves judicial resources for us to rule on plaintiffs’

standing theory “for purposes of facilitating the resolution of

this case,” as the district court concluded. Tanner-Brown II,

639 F. Supp. 3d at 5. Moreover, the argument Tanner-Brown

pursues on appeal is evident from the face of the complaint.

She asserted a claim for an accounting, alleging that

“Defendants have a duty under Section 6 of the [1908 Act] to

provide an accounting” and requesting that the court “order

Defendants to provide Plaintiffs an accounting.” Compl.

¶¶ 36-39, §§ IX-X. There is no cause to find forfeiture here.

We turn to whether Tanner-Brown has alleged a legal

theory and facts sufficient to establish a cognizable injury-in-

fact. See Parker v. District of Columbia, 478 F.3d 370, 377-78

(D.C. Cir. 2007). In conducting this analysis, we “must be

careful not to decide the questions on the merits for or against

the plaintiff, and must therefore assume that on the merits the

plaintiffs would be successful in their claims.” City of

10

Waukesha v. E.P.A., 320 F.3d 228, 235 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (per

curiam).

The Supreme Court has explained that Article III injuries

must be “‘concrete’—that is, ‘real, and not abstract.’”

TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413, 424 (2021)

(quoting Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U. S. 330, 340 (2016)). In

determining whether a harm is sufficiently concrete, “history

and tradition offer a meaningful guide to the types of cases that

Article III empowers federal courts to consider.” Sprint

Commc’ns Co. v. APCC Servs., Inc., 554 U.S. 269, 274 (2008).

“[T]raditional tangible harms, such as physical harms and

monetary harms” are clear examples of concrete Article III

injuries. TransUnion, 594 U.S. at 425. Certain intangible

harms may be concrete, especially if they have a “close

relationship to harms traditionally recognized as providing a

basis for lawsuits in American courts.” Id.

The Congress may also “elevat[e] to the status of legally

cognizable injuries concrete, de facto injuries that were

previously inadequate in law.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 578. In these

cases, the court typically analyzes the rights-granting statute as

part of its standing analysis to determine whether the plaintiffs

have sufficiently pleaded an injury. For example, in Friends of

Animals v. Jewell, this court considered an alleged

informational injury arising from statute and explained that the

plaintiff failed to plead an injury because it was “seeking to

enforce a statutory deadline provision that by its terms does not

require the public disclosure of information.” 828 F.3d 989,

992 (D.C. Cir. 2016).

Here, Tanner-Brown has alleged that her injury is the lack

of an accounting regarding property held in trust by the United

States. A trustee’s failure to furnish an accounting to a

beneficiary is a concrete harm grounded in “basic common law

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trust principles” and “traditional equit[y].” Cobell v. Norton,

240 F.3d 1081, 1103 (D.C. Cir. 2001); see also id. (“Under

traditional equitable trust principles, ‘[t]he trustee’s report must

contain sufficient information for the beneficiary readily to

ascertain whether the trust has been faithfully carried out.’”

(quoting White Mountain Apache Tribe of Arizona v. United

States, 26 Cl. Ct. 446, 449 (1992), aff’d, 5 F.3d 1506 (Fed. Cir.

1993)). Her alleged injury is thus rooted in “American history

and tradition” and is the type of harm “traditionally recognized

as providing a basis for lawsuits in American courts.”

TransUnion, 594 U.S. at 424-25.

The district court rejected Tanner-Brown’s alleged injury-

in-fact after analyzing Section 6 of the 1908 Act. It concluded

that the Secretary’s statutory duties are discretionary and

therefore the Act does not create a trust relationship because

there can be no claim for an accounting in the absence of any

duty to furnish one. Tanner-Brown II, 639 F. Supp. 3d at 6-7.

We conclude that this approach was erroneous under

established standing doctrine.

“The Supreme Court has made clear that when considering

whether a plaintiff has Article III standing, a federal court must

assume arguendo the merits of his or her legal claim.” Parker,

478 F.3d at 377 (citing Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 501-02

(1975)). We have explained in the context of a constitutional

claim that it would be “doctrinally quite unsound” to assess

standing “by first extensively analyzing th[e] provision,

determining that it does not provide an individual right, and

then, and only then, concluding that the plaintiff lacked

standing.” Id. at 376-77. Such an approach would amount to

“premature judicial involvement” and “substantive

adjudication in the absence of a ‘case or controversy,’” Jud.

Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Senate, 432 F.3d 359, 364 (D.C. Cir. 2005)

(Williams, J., concurring). Instead, we must consider standing

12

separately from the merits by assuming that the plaintiff will

ultimately prevail on her legal theory. See, e.g., Warth, 422

U.S. at 502 (assuming legal theory of complaint is cognizable

when assessing standing).2

At oral argument, Interior urged us to adopt the reasoning

in Fletcher v. United States, 26 F.4th 1314 (Fed. Cir. 2022). In

that case, the Federal Circuit found that individual holders of

Osage headrights, not simply the Tribe, had standing to pursue

breach of trust claims after extensively analyzing the relevant

statute and concluding that the statute gave rise to a trust

relationship between the headright owners and the federal

government. Id. at 1322-24. The Federal Circuit relied on

Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560, to define an injury-in-fact as the

“invasion of a legally protected interest,” concluding that “[i]n

the context of the [plaintiffs’] breach of trust claims, the

plaintiffs must show the existence of a trust relationship with

the government.” Fletcher, 26 F.4th at 1322. This case is

different from Fletcher.

The Supreme Court’s use of the phrase “legally protected

interest” in Lujan is best understood as referring to a cognizable

interest rather than imposing a new requirement that the

invaded interest be affirmatively protected by positive law. See

Jud. Watch, 432 F.3d at 363 (Williams, J., concurring); Parker,

478 F.3d at 377. As Judge Williams persuasively explained in

his concurring opinion in Judicial Watch, the strongest

evidence for this reading is in Lujan itself: after referring to the

2

There is a narrow exception to this general rule if the claim

“clearly appears to be immaterial and made solely for the purpose of

obtaining jurisdiction or where such a claim is wholly insubstantial

and frivolous.” Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83,

89 (1998) (quotation omitted). The Secretary has not argued that

Tanner-Brown’s claim falls into this exception and we see no reason

to consider it here.

13

requirement of a “legally protected interest,” the Supreme

Court found that the “desire to use or observe an animal

species, even for purely esthetic purposes, is undeniably a

cognizable interest for purpose of standing.” Lujan, 504 U.S.

at 562-63 (emphasis added); see Jud. Watch, 432 F.3d at 363

(Williams, J., concurring). At the same time, however, the

Lujan Court did not identify any source of positive law giving

rise to the cognizable interest in observing an animal species.

See Lujan, 504 U.S. at 562-63; Jud. Watch, 432 F.3d at 363-64

(Williams, J., concurring).

We believe that the Secretary overreads Fletcher. First,

there was no dispute in Fletcher that a trust relationship

existed. See Fletcher, 26 F.4th at 1322-1324; Fletcher Opening

Br. at 20, Fletcher, 26 F.4th 1314 (No. 21-1625); Government

Br. at 22, Fletcher, 26 F.4th 1314 (No. 21-1625). In that

context, both the plaintiffs and the government couched the

argument about who could recover under the trust as a standing

issue. Fletcher Opening Br. at 19-27, Fletcher, 26 F.4th 1314

(No. 21-1625); Government Br. at 46-54, Fletcher, 26 F.4th

1314 (Fed. Cir. 2022) (No. 21-1625); Oral Argument, Fletcher,

26 F.4th 1314 (No. 21-1625), ECF No. 59; see Fletcher, 26

F.4th at 1322. Neither side argued that the question of who

held the trust interest should be addressed as a merits question

rather than a standing question and so that question was never

joined in Fletcher.

Here, however, the existence of a trust at all is the merits

question before us and the parties expressly dispute whether

that question is best framed as a standing or merits inquiry.

Under our precedent and the Supreme Court’s, whether a trust

relationship exists between a plaintiff and the federal

government is best characterized as a substantive merits

decision that should not be reached unless and until there is

14

Article III standing. See Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t,

523 U.S. 83, 89-102 (1998).

The standing question before us, then, requires that we

assume that Tanner-Brown is correct on her legal theory that

the statute could give rise to a trust relationship with attendant

fiduciary duties under certain circumstances, including if a

guardian or representative were appointed by the Secretary or

the history of the government’s control created a trust. On her

theory of the case and the facts alleged in the complaint, she

has asserted a cognizable injury-in-fact, as explained supra.

Tanner-Brown also satisfies the causation and redressability

requirements of Article III standing. Her injury of not having

received an accounting to which she is entitled is fairly

traceable to the Secretary’s failure to provide one and could be

redressed by a favorable decision on the merits. We therefore

conclude that she has standing to assert her claim for an

accounting.

B. HIFF’s Standing

HIFF claims associational standing, requiring it to show

that “(a) its members would otherwise have standing to sue in

their own right; (b) the interests it seeks to protect are germane

to the organization’s purpose; and (c) neither the claim asserted

nor the relief requested requires the participation of individual

members in the lawsuit.” Hunt v. Washington State Apple

Advert. Comm’n, 432 U.S. 333, 343 (1977). The first prong is

satisfied because HIFF identifies Tanner-Brown as a member

and Tanner-Brown has met Article III standing requirements.

Interior does not dispute the second prong.

Our analysis therefore focuses on the third prong, whether

the claim asserted and relief requested require individualized

determinations. This requirement is prudential and reflects a

15

“judicially self-imposed limit on the exercise of federal

jurisdiction” rather than a “constitutional mandate,” focusing

instead on “matters of administrative convenience and

efficiency.” United Food & Com. Workers Union Loc. 751 v.

Brown Grp., Inc., 517 U.S. 544, 557 (1996) (cleaned up).

As the district court explained, the nature of this suit

“necessarily requires ‘consideration of the individual

circumstances of any aggrieved member of the organization.’”

Tanner-Brown I, 2022 WL 2643556, at *7 (quoting Ctr. for

Sustainable Econ. v. Jewell, 779 F.3d 588, 597 (D.C. Cir.

2015)). Here, given the nature of the trust claim, a claim for an

accounting requires information about an individual allottee’s

property, its lease terms and any earlier appointment of a

representative or legally analogous action by the Secretary.

HIFF does not explain how the court can “order Defendants to

provide Plaintiffs an accounting,” Compl. § X(c)—the relief

requested in the complaint—without making individualized

findings regarding specific allotments held in trust for specific

allottees.

Moreover, HIFF does not purport to represent the interests

of any member not already party to the suit. HIFF identifies

Tanner-Brown as its sole named member and its standing rests

wholly on her claim. The Third Circuit considered a similar

fact pattern in which the association’s “claim to standing is

grounded on the claims of its members . . . who are also

plaintiffs in the lawsuit[,] . . . [u]nlike other cases conferring

standing on organizations.” Blunt v. Lower Merion Sch. Dist.,

767 F.3d 247, 290 (3d Cir. 2014). The Blunt court denied

associational standing not only because the claims required

individualized assessments but also because it would not

further “‘administrative convenience and efficiency’” to permit

the association to litigate on behalf of its members “when those

members are already parties to the lawsuit in their own right.”

16

Id. (quoting United Food, 517 U.S. at 557). So too here. The

claim for an accounting pursuant to Section 6 requires

individual determinations and HIFF’s participation in the suit

would be redundant with Tanner-Brown’s. Accordingly, we

affirm the district court’s holding that HIFF does not have

standing to pursue this litigation.

III. MERITS

Interior urges us to affirm the district court’s dismissal on

the alternate ground that Tanner-Brown has failed to state a

claim for which relief could be granted under Federal Rule of

Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), arguing that Section 6 does not

impose any enforceable fiduciary duties on the Secretary and

so there is no legal obligation to provide an accounting. This

argument raises factual questions we cannot resolve at this

juncture.

Although there is a “general trust relationship between the

United States and the Indian People,” United States v. Mitchell,

463 U.S. 206, 225 (1983), the Supreme Court has explained

that this relationship in itself does not give rise to any fiduciary

obligation of the federal government. Rather, there must be

“specific rights-creating or duty-imposing statutory or

regulatory prescriptions.” United States v. Navajo Nation, 537

U.S. 488, 506 (2003). “The Government assumes Indian trust

responsibilities only to the extent it expressly accepts those

responsibilities by statute.” United States v. Jicarilla Apache

Nation, 564 U.S. 162, 177 (2011) (footnote omitted).

Section 6 details the extent of the Secretary’s duties owed

to minor allottees. The Secretary is “empowered” to appoint

“local representatives” “as he may deem necessary to inquire

into and investigate the conduct of guardians or curators having

in charge the estates of such minors.” 1908 Act § 6. The

17

statute thus initially confers a discretionary power: the

Secretary may choose, but is not obligated, to appoint a

representative if she deems it necessary. If the representative

then concludes that a minor’s allotment is not being properly

cared for, he “shall have power and it shall be [his] duty” to

report the matter to the probate court, have the matter fully

investigated, prosecute any remedy necessary to protect the

minor allottee’s interests and “make full and complete reports

to the Secretary.” Id. Once the Secretary takes the

discretionary step of appointing a representative and the

representative forms the opinion that the allotment is not being

properly cared for, then, there are certain statutory duties owed

to the minor allottees.

We do not know if the federal government owes any duty

to Curls’ estate because we do not know whether the Secretary

appointed a representative to oversee his allotment pursuant to

Section 6. Tanner-Brown seeks an accounting because she

lacks information that is likely to be in Interior’s possession

regarding Curls’ estate—including whether a representative

was appointed. We do know that federal courts were involved

with Curls to some extent because Tanner-Brown submitted

public filings from the U.S. Court for the Indian Territory in a

case captioned In the matter of the Guardianship of Willie

Curls, Edward Curls, James Curls, George Curls, Stephenia

Curls, Beatrice Curls and Julius Curls. See Mem. in Opp. to

the Gov’t’s Mot. to Dismiss, App. F at 2, 20, 69, Tanner-

Brown v. de la Vega, Civ. No. 14-1065 (D.D.C. Oct. 21, 2021),

ECF No. 18-6. But we cannot speak to the factual and legal

import of these filings given the lack of information available

to Tanner-Brown, especially in the absence of any factual

findings on the merits by the district court.

At this stage, we do not decide the extent of the federal

government’s fiduciary duties, if any, owed to Curls’ estate.

18

“Given the state of the record and the factual intricacies

intertwined with [Tanner-Brown’s] allegations, we are

unwilling to delve into questions that the district court did not

address.” Jones v. Bernanke, 557 F.3d 670, 681 (D.C. Cir.

2009) (cleaned up). We remand for the district court to

consider the merits of Tanner-Brown’s allegations and the

relevant record documents in the first instance.

Interior also asks us to affirm the district court’s dismissal

on the alternative ground that the plaintiffs’ suit is time-barred,

arguing that the six-year statute of limitations began to run

when Curls knew he had not been provided with an accounting

(in 1918, when he turned twenty-one) or when Interior took the

legal position in 2007 that it did not owe a trust duty under

Section 6. The statute of limitations on claims “concerning

losses to or mismanagement of trust funds,” however, does not

run “until the affected tribe or individual Indian has been

furnished with an accounting of such funds from which the

beneficiary can determine whether there has been a loss.”

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014, Pub. L. No. 113-76,

128 Stat. 5, 305-06; see Jewell, 153 F. Supp. 3d at 107 n.3.

Because this statute may affect the statute of limitations

analysis and the district court did not reach this argument, “we

will follow our usual (although hardly universal) practice of

declining to address arguments unaddressed by the district

court.” Pollack v. Hogan, 703 F.3d 117, 121 (D.C. Cir. 2012)

(per curiam). We leave the legal and factual questions

involving the statute of limitations for consideration on

remand.

***

For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the district court’s

decision that Tanner-Brown does not have Article III standing

and affirm its decision that HIFF lacks associational standing.

19

We remand for further proceedings consistent with this

opinion.

So ordered.