ELR Citation: 56 ELR 20002
No(s). 20-1918 (ABJ) (D.D.C. Jan 6, 2026) (Jackson, J.)

A district court denied DOI's motion for summary judgment and the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation's motion for judgment on the pleadings in a lawsuit challenging a 2020 DOI opinion that reversed a long-standing position over ownership of the riverbed underlying the portion of the Missouri River inside the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. The 2020 opinion reversed the position that the federal government held that portion of the river in trust for the tribes and purported to transfer ownership rights to North Dakota. It was withdrawn after a change in administrations and DOI took steps to record title to the lands in dispute, but North Dakota intervened to seek to enforce its claimed ownership rights. DOI and the tribes argued the government possessed title to the riverbed and held it in trust for the tribes, and North Dakota contended the state owned the riverbed because title passed to the state upon its admission to the Union in 1889 under the constitutional "equal footing doctrine." The court found the language in the documents establishing the reservation did not unambiguously indicate whether the government intended to include the riverbed in the reservation, and that genuine disputes of material fact precluded the court from adjudicating legal title to the riverbed. It denied the tribes' motion for judgment on the pleadings as well as DOI's motion for summary judgment.