The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (“ANCSA”), Pub. L. No. 92-203, 85 Stat. 668 (1971) (codified as amended at 43 U.S.C. §§ 1601-1629f), is a complex piece of legislation that fundamentally altered land rights in Alaska. The Act sought to achieve “a fair and just settlement of all claims by Natives and Native groups of Alaska, based on aboriginal land claims.” 43 U.S.C. § 1601(a). Several years of hearings and detailed studies commissioned by Congress preceded the enactment of the ANCSA. See, e.g., Federal Field Committee for Development Planning in Alaska, Alaska Natives and the Land (1968). Reports accompanying the final bills in the House and Senate indicate that Congress believed it had struck a fair balance among the competing interests. See S. Rep. No. 92-405, at 85-86 (1971); H.R. Rep. No. 92-523, at 4-6 (1971). The Act was well received by the major groups that stood to benefit from it, including the Alaskan Natives. See, e.g., Robert D. Arnold, Alaska Native Land Claims at v, 145-46 (1976).
In the 1980s, the Catawba Tribe began proceedings to reclaim certain ancestral lands that had been taken from it. 982 F.2d at 1567. In a 1986 decision, the Supreme Court rejected the Tribe’s claims. The Court found that the Termination Act unambiguously subjected the Tribe to South Carolina laws, including the State’s ten-year adverse possession statute. Id. at 1568. As more than ten years had passed between the Termination Act and the Tribe’s suit, title to the lands had irrevocably passed through adverse possession.The Catawba Tribe then filed suit in the Claims Court, arguing that the government had taken its claim to the lands by virtue of assuring the Tribe that the 1962 Act would have no effect on those claims. 982 F.2d at 1568. The trial court dismissed the suit as untimely. This court affirmed, ruling that the statute of limitations on the Tribe’s takings claim began to run in 1962, not on the date of the Supreme Court’s decision in 1986. In pertinent part, the court held that the Termination Act’s “objective meaning and effect were fixed when the Act was adopted. Any later judicial pronouncements simply explain, but do not create, the operative effect.” Id. at 1570. Although the Tribe was unaware of the effect of the Termination Act, that did not toll the statute of limitations when the relevant facts were not inherently unknowable. Id. (citing Menominee Tribe of Indians v. United States, 726 F.2d 718, 720-21 (Fed. Cir. 1984)); see also Alliance of Descendants of Texas Land Grants, 37 F.3d at 1481 (statute of limitations for takings claim began to run when treaty extinguished claims, not when claimants realized the effect of the treaty).Under that analysis, we must determine whether the Terms and Conditions had an unambiguous meaning such that its effect was fixed when the agreement was enacted. The government argues that paragraphs III(A) and VII(A) of the Terms and Conditions unambiguously cut off Seldovia’s rights in the contested 12(b) selections. We examine each section in turn.
Defines where disputes must be litigated (state vs. federal), which affects cost, leverage, and practical enforceability for shareholders.