Posted on 11/15/2005 12:59:45 PM PST by SmithL
WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court decided Tuesday that it was unreasonable to require a historical accounting of money the government has been managing for Indian tribes, saying the bookkeeping chore would "take 200 years."
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia sided with the government and the tribes in their effort to block a lower court order for a detailed tally of money owed the tribes going back to 1887.
The accounting had been ordered by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who is overseeing a class-action lawsuit in which thousands of Indians claim they were cheated out of more than $100 billion in oil, gas, grazing, timber and other royalties overseen by the Interior Department.
In their appeals, the government and the Indians argued that the massive historical accounting Lamberth ordered would cost up to $13 billion — far more than was reasonable.
On Tuesday, a three judge appeals panel agreed, overturning the accounting and calling Lamberth's decision "ill-founded," an abuse of discretion and was not favored by either side in the lawsuit.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Lambeth is probably one of the good guys, but this entire case has been as badly mismanaged as the Indian's money has been.
Glad I don't bank with the government!
I can just imagine, "Sir, we don't know exacly how much you have, it's complicated. Have a pen."
I believe it is justice. Lamberth has continually sided with this attempted scam of the American taxpayers. He has ordered computer shutdowns at the behest of the plaintiffs which have stopped payments to the very Indians at the core of this case. He has refused to consider every attempt to work with the plaintiffs by the Department of Interior. He has placed absurd requirements for record keeping on the defendants, and totally ignored any effort to actually estimate a total amount possibly owed to the plaintiffs.
He may be one of the good guys, but for years he has been acting as an advocate, not a judge. Good for the appeals court!
bffr
Perhaps we should sue for an accounting of our income tax money......
There was a time there, you couldn't book reservations at Yellowstone online because the Park Service was a part of the Dept. of the Interior, which included the BIA, and all of their computer stuff was ordered off line for security reasons, less someone mess with the BIA funds. And this included Wildland fire information sites, BLM sites, and other things that just made it expensive to get anything done.
Very true. The problem is that most of the computer systems in the Department are tied in a number of ways. And almost all of the financial aspects are handled over a secure internet connection. So Lamberth wanted a computer system with absolutely no internet connection. That ended all payments to the Indians because the internet was required to receive reports in order to calculate amounts owed. This then snowballed to almost every part of Interior, including the Park Service. He did this three times, the first one was about 3 months long.
He's a great example of judicial overstepping...he meant well all along, but the cure was worse than the disease!
"By right of conquest".
Glad I'm not an Indian. also glad the Department of the Interior has no strings on me.
Lamberth is a self-important jackass.
Just imagine making this sort of claim when the IRS audits you.
Wasn't this when Bennett, under the Clinton Administration, was involved?
Federal Judge Royce Lamberth is best known for the ease with which he approved dozens of discovery motions that allowed fellow conservative Larry Klayman of Judicial Watch to dig into the public and private life of President Bill Clinton - Brief Article
He sure is.
How come Dubya didn't appoint him to the SCOTUS?
I can't beleive everyone has such a dim view of Lamberth. He was seen as a conservative hero in the late 90's.
When a judge's finding is characterized as "abuse of discretion" it is a statement that basically no reasonable person would agree with him! I haven't followed this case but that is a real smackdown.
Anybody who sided with Larry Klayman as much as Lamberth did has got to have a couple of screws loose.
The fact that an Appeals Court said he "abused his discretion" is quite a reprimand.
I have observed Lamberth throughout the Cobell litigation and saw clear and convincing abuses of judicial power by him. His dislike of Clinton resulted in decisions conservatives saw as beneficial to the cause, but Lamberth is no hero, and deserves to be sanctioned for his atrocious behavior.
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