VERSAILLES, N.Y. ? Cayuga Indians stand to collect nearly a quarter of a billion dollars for the loss of their upstate New York reservation, a federal judge ruled Oct. 2, but Chief Clint Halftown warned the 21-year-old land claim suit was far from over.
‘It’s a very positive decision,’ Halftown said. ‘This is one of many steps in the right direction, but unfortunately it’s not the end, either.’
Halftown, leader of the Cayuga Indian Nation of New York, said he would wait to see how the state and county government defendants reacted before making further moves such as buying land to restore tribal territory.
U.S. District Judge Neal P. McCurn, who has presided over the case since it began in 1980, repeated his call for an out-of-court settlement. He said he expected instead that the entire case now would be appealed to the next federal level, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.
A spokesman for the New York state attorney general said his office would consult with its client, Gov. George Pataki, before deciding what to do.
‘We are studying the decision. We have just received it and will be carefully reviewing it with our client. There are a variety of paths we may or may not pursue.’
He said one factor was the emergency caused by the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. The unexpectedly large judgment hits the state as its budget is reeling from the massive cost of the World Trade Center disaster and its blow to the economy.
McCurn’s judgment nearly doubles the $120 million settlement that the state offered the Cayugas in mid-2000 before the case entered the phase of deciding damages. The main issue before McCurn was the amount of interest due the tribe for the improper taking of 64,000 acres around the end of the 18th century.
An earlier jury trial decided that the state had taken the land illegally, but only awarded $36.9 million for the value of the land.
A witness for the tribe argued that interest for the illegal use of the land over the past 200 years would total $1.7 billion. The state argued that it only owed $12.1 million.
McCurn said he based his ruling on a figure proposed by the U.S. Justice Department, which intervened on behalf of the Cayugas. Using a lower interest rate, Justice arrived at compounded interest of $527.5 million.
But the ‘unique and unprecedented circumstances’ of the case, McCurn wrote in a 183-page decision, ‘cry out’ for consideration of other factors. He listed the passage of 204 years since the original wrong, the late date of U.S. intervention in the case, in 1992, and the ‘lack or fraudulent or calculated purposeful intent on the part of the state to deprive the Cayugas of fair compensation.’
McCurn discounted his ruling to 40 percent of the Justice Department figure, granting the Cayugas another $211 million on top of the jury award.
The effect of the ruling is rippling through the Iroquois Confederacy, although few tribal leaders are ready to comment on it. The Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma is a plaintiff-intervenor in the case, but a spokeswoman for Chief LeRoy Howard said ‘he would have no comment at this time.’
Asked if the decision was good news, she replied emphatically, ‘Oh, yeah.’
Three other tribes in the confederacy, the Oneida, Seneca and Mohawk, are pursuing land claim suits against New York, but spokesmen could not be reached or declined comment for lack of information. A fourth tribe, the Onondaga, has been contemplating a land suit. Halftown said the Cayuga ruling might encourage them to go forward.
