ELR Citation: 53 ELR 20034
No(s). 22 CV 0170 (PJS/LIB) (D. Minn. Feb 24, 2023) (Schiltz, J.)

A district court denied a mining company's motion to dismiss an Indian tribe's challenge to a land exchange between the company and the Forest Service. The tribe argued that the land exchange implicated its sovereign interests, including a right under an 1854 treaty to use the land for hunting, fishing, and gathering, and resulted in loss of access to over 6,000 acres of public land for exercising treaty rights. The company moved to dismiss for lack of standing, arguing the usufructuary rights created under the treaty belonged to individual tribal members, not the tribe itself, and that the tribe had failed to identify any member who used the property while it was public land. The court found that the usufructuary rights reserved in the treaty belonged to the tribe, and not solely to its individual members, and thus that the tribe's alleged injury was sufficient to confer standing. It denied the company's motion to dismiss.