Confederated Bands of Ute Indians v. United States (330 U.S. 169)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided February 17, 1947 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 330 U.S. 169 · 67 S. Ct. 650
- Decided
- February 17, 1947
- Term
- October Term 1946
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Black
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Black delivered the opinion of the Court. Petitioners brought this action in the Court of Claims under the Act of June 28, 1938, 52 Stat. 1209, as amended, 55 Stat. 593, to recover compensation for lands made available to them by an 1875 Executive Order of the President and subsequently taken from them by the United States. Their claim was that by an Act of 1880, Congress had undertaken to sell these lands for the benefit of the petitioners, but that they had never been compensated for them. The Court of Claims, one judge concurring specially, made findings of fact and concluded as a matter of law that petitioners had no compensable interest in the lands because they “never did acquire title to these . . . lands and . . . the Congress never did agree to sell them for the account of” petitioners. 106 Ct. Cl. 33, 51, 64 F. Supp. 569, 571. We granted certiorari, 329 U. S. 694. The findings of the Court of Claims from official letters, Executive Orders and statutes incorporated in these findings were as follows: A treaty of 1868, 15 Stat. 619, between the United States and petitioners’ ancestors, the Ute Indian tribes, established a reservation for them in Colorado. The northern boundary of the 15 million acres there ceded was described in the treaty as a line fifteen miles north of, and parallel to, the 40th parallel of north latitude. In the 15-mile wide strip north…
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