The Navajo Nation has long sought damages under the Indian Tucker Act (ITA) for an asserted breach of fiduciary duty by the Secretary of the Interior in connection with his failure promptly to approve a royalty rate increase under a coal lease (Lease 8580) the Tribe executed in 1964. Six years ago, this Court held that “the Tribe’s claim for compensation… fails.” United States v. Navajo Nation, 537 U.S. 488 (Navajo I). The Court explained that in order to invoke the ITA and thereby bypass federal sovereign immunity, a tribe “must identify a substantive source of law that establishes specific fiduciary or other duties, and allege that the Government has failed faithfully to perform those duties.” Id., at 506. Holding that such duties were not imposed by the Indian Mineral Leasing Act of 1938 (IMLA), by the Indian Mineral Development Act of 1982 (IMDA), or by 25 U.S.C. §399, the Court reversed a judgment for the Tribe and remanded. The Court of Federal Claims then dismissed the Tribe’s claim, but the Federal Circuit reversed, finding violations of duties imposed by the Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act of 1950, 25 U.S.C. §§635(a), and the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, 30 U.S.C. §1300(e), as well as common-law duties arising from the Government’s “comprehensive control” over tribal coal.
Held: The Tribe’s claim for compensation fails. None of the sources of law cited by the Federal Circuit and relied upon by the Tribe provides any more sound a basis for its lawsuit than those analyzed in Navajo I. Pp. 8–14.
