Hoopa appendix supporting summary judgment - Schlosser Law Files

3. Provisions of the Hoopa-Yurok Settlement Act.
The Settlement Act was tailored to the unique legal situation and problems created by
Short, Fuzz, and the related cases. The cases frustrated territorial management by the Hoopa
Valley Tribe, made it impossible for the Yurok Tribe to organize, and for either Tribe to
effectively define its members. Those cases also held that neither Indian tribes nor individual
Indians held vested (Fifth Amendment-protected) rights in the lands of the 1891 Reservation.
Instead, 1891 Reservation rights remained subject to alteration and divestment, as did such rights
in Hopi and Navajo lands for some time. Basically, therefore, the Settlement Act established a
method to divide the 1891 Reservation lands into two reservations, to expedite the completion of
the litigation, and to enable the Yurok Tribe to organize a tribal government so that each tribe
could exercise sovereignty over its reservation. 5
Section 2 of the Settlement Act authorized splitting the 1891 Reservation into the new
Hoopa Valley Reservation and the Yurok Reservation, conditioned upon the Hoopa Valley Tribe
enacting a resolution waiving certain claims. Yurok reservation land benefits were similarly
conditioned upon a claims waiver. Section 2 provided the permanent vested legal rights in the
new reservations that the Short case found lacking. 6
The Hoopa Valley Business Council adopted the required resolution waiving certain
claims. As a result, the 1891 Reservation was partitioned into the Hoopa Valley Reservation and
~The report ofthe Select Committee on Indian Affairs, Partitioning Certain Reservation
Lands Between the Hoopa Valley Tribe and the YurokIndians, to Clarify the Use ofTribal
Timber Proceeds, andfor OtherPurposes, S. Rep. 564, 100th Cong., 2nd Sess. (1988), contains
the most authoritative legislative history on the Act.
6 5. Rep. at 2.
-6-