District Court, D. Montana — appointed by Dwight Eisenhower
Pacific Legal Foundation v. Watt
District Court, D. Montana · 1982-06-03
The case concerned challenges to the Secretary of the Interior's compliance with a House committee resolution under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act directing withdrawal of three Montana wilderness areas from mineral leasing, following an earlier court judgment that interpreted the statute to avoid separation-of-powers concerns by leaving scope and duration to the Secretary. After the judgment, the Secretary revoked a prior withdrawal order, postponed leasing consideration until the end of the congressional session, and announced plans to seek new legislation, prompting motions for clarification or reconsideration and a suggestion that the cases were moot. The court determined that the cases were not moot, reasoning that the Secretary's voluntary deferral did not eliminate the possibility that the committee resolution remained binding or that the underlying dispute over its validity could recur if judicial review altered the status quo.
environmentfederal power
Pacific Legal Foundation v. Watt
District Court, D. Montana · 1982-01-19 · cited 8×
The case concerned challenges by Pacific Legal Foundation and others to Public Land Order No. 5952, which withdrew the Bob Marshall, Scapegoat, and Great Bear Wilderness Areas from mineral leasing pursuant to a resolution by the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs under section 204(e) of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976. Plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment that section 204(e) violates separation of powers, bicameralism, and presentment requirements, and that the committee directive exceeded statutory authority, conflicted with the Wilderness Act, and violated due process. The court considered the statutory framework of the Wilderness Act and FLPMA, the committee's emergency finding and resolution directing immediate withdrawal until 1984, and constitutional limits on congressional committee actions, holding that the provision could not be interpreted to permit the committee to unilaterally mandate the withdrawal and its duration without violating fundamental constitutional constraints.
environmentfederal power
Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes v. Namen
District Court, D. Montana · 1974-08-14 · cited 13×
This case involves a dispute over land ownership and usage rights on the Flathead Indian Reservation, where the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes sued non-Indian property owners for alleged trespass, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to remove docks, a breakwater, and other structures extending beyond the high-water mark into Flathead Lake. The defendants, who operate a marina on land originally allotted to an Indian under the 1904 Act and later conveyed, claimed riparian rights of access and wharfage. The court considered cross-motions for summary judgment after the parties stipulated to key facts, focusing on whether federal patents issued under the allotment acts granted such riparian rights in the navigable lake bed, which had been reserved to the Tribes by the 1855 Treaty of Hellgate. The core reasoning examines federal law governing pre-statehood grants, the intent behind allotment patents, and distinctions between treaty-based rights and those conveyed by patent, while noting that title to the lake bed passed to the state upon Montana's admission but subject to prior federal dispositions.
propertyfederal power
United States v. Baucus
District Court, D. Montana · 1974-05-17 · cited 3×
This case concerned an IRS petition to enforce a summons compelling attorney and CPA Baucus to produce workpapers used in preparing the Kidds' 1966-1968 tax returns. Taxpayer Kidd intervened, asserting attorney-client privilege and Fifth Amendment protection via constructive possession of the papers. After an initial ruling quashing the summons, the Supreme Court's Couch decision prompted remand to reassess constructive possession; Kidd's later nolo contendere plea to tax fraud charges then mooted the self-incrimination claim. On remand, the court addressed only whether the attorney-client relationship, which it found existed and covered confidential communications in the workpapers, justified denying enforcement of the summons.
taxescriminal lawprocedure
United States v. Pollmann
District Court, D. Montana · 1973-08-29 · cited 15×
The case concerned a non-Indian defendant charged under 18 U.S.C. § 1165 with willfully trespassing on land belonging to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes by fishing without a permit from a boat on the south half of Flathead Lake, which lies within the Flathead Indian Reservation. The defendant moved to dismiss, arguing the information was insufficient, the statute was unconstitutional, the tribes lacked authority over navigable waters, and the prosecution involved racial discrimination. On stipulated facts, the court determined that the Hellgate Treaty granted the tribes ownership of the lake bed, so the statute applied to the waters, and rejected the other challenges to the information and ordinance. The court ultimately concluded the prosecution failed because the defendant's conduct was not willful and knowing, given the prior legal uncertainty over whether the lake constituted "land" under the statute and his good-faith reliance on counsel.
criminal lawfederal powerproperty
Northern Cheyenne Tribe v. Hollowbreast
District Court, D. Montana · 1972-09-29 · cited 9×
This case is a class action brought by the Northern Cheyenne Tribe under Public Law 90-424 to determine whether allottees under the 1926 Act (as amended) received a vested property right in the minerals beneath their reservation allotments that would be protected by the Fifth Amendment. The 1968 law amended the prior statute to reserve all coal, oil, gas, and other minerals in perpetuity for the benefit of the Tribe rather than allowing them to pass to the allottees, their heirs, or devisees after fifty years. The court examined the language of the original and amended statutes, the terms of the trust patents issued to allottees, and principles of property and Indian law, concluding that the allottees held only an expectancy interest subject to congressional modification and did not acquire any vested right in the mineral estate. The decision therefore upheld the perpetual reservation of the minerals for the Tribe.
federal powerproperty