Judge rules Utah can appeal Navajo case
State seeks spending history of oil trust fund
U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell ordered that the state can pursue an interlocutory appeal with the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on the issue of how far back the accounting must go. With an interlocutory appeal, the appeals court can decide whether or not to accept it.
A group of Navajos filed a federal lawsuit against the state in 1992 maintaining that the state has mismanaged the money. It is one in a series of lawsuits regarding the trust that date to the 1970s.
Campbell ruled in January that Utah must provide an accounting of the $150 million trust dating back to 1955.
But the state argued that it should not have to go back that far since the fund issue has been litigated in three previous lawsuits.
"It's unfair for state to have to go back and relitigate what could have been brought to the court earlier," said deputy Utah Attorney General Phil Lott. "All claims the plaintiffs are pursuing in the current case have either been brought before or could have been brought before."
Congress set up the trust in 1933 requiring that 37.5 percent of the royalties from gas and gas exploration on Navajo land be placed in a trust administered by the state of Utah. The money was intended to be spent for health, education and general welfare of the Navajo people.
Barnard has previously said that his clients do not contend that Utah took any money from the trust. But the plaintiffs maintain the state mismanaged the trust and gave funds to organizations that embezzled money.
In one case, the Utah Navajo Trust Fund gave about $35 million to the nonprofit Utah Navajo Development Council (UNDC), which in turn created a for-profit group called Utah Navajo Industries (UNI). That organization was supposed to invest money to spur small business development and growth on reservations.
However, some UNDC and UNI officials were convicted of embezzling trust funds, and the Navajos who filed lawsuit contend Utah is responsible for any missing money.
"The fact that Utah wants to appeal means one more detour on this long road for our clients," Barnard said in an e-mail Thursday. "An appeal will take 1.5 to 2 years to go to Denver and back.
"We have asked Judge Campbell to continue to hear various issues not affected by the January ruling and not affected by this potential appeal. We hope that she will do so in order that we not lose time in moving the case forward," Barnard wrote.
Barnard wrote that Utah is unhappy with Campbell's original ruling that the state provide information dating to the 1950s "because they know they cannot fully account for the money back to that date because of inadequate record keeping, etc."
E-mail: lindat@desnews.com
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