IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 
____________________________________
) 
ELOUISE PEPION COBELL, et al., ) 
Civil Action No. 96-1285 (RCL) Plaintiffs, 
v. 
)
)
)
)
) 
GALE A. NORTON, et al., ) 
Defendants. 
)
) 
____________________________________) 
DEFENDANTS’ REPLY TO PLAINTIFFS’ RESPONSE TO 
AMICUS CURIAE BRIEF OF THE QUAPAW TRIBE OF OKLAHOMA 
INTRODUCTION 
On August 24, 2004, this Court granted leave to the Quapaw Tribe of Oklahoma 
(“Tribe”) to file its Amicus Curiae Brief (“Amicus Brief”), to which Plaintiffs responded on 
August 31, 2004 ("Plaintiffs' Response").1 In their Response, Plaintiffs inaccurately characterize 
Defendants’ Motion for Expedited Clarification or, in the Alternative, Modification of the 
December 23, 2002 Order (“Defendants' Motion”) as a request that “would inexorably lead to 
continuing abuse of individual Indian trust beneficiaries.” Plaintiffs' Response at 2. Plaintiffs’ 
concerns are unsupportable. As the settlement documents attached to Defendants' Motion make 
clear, the settlement ("Settlement Agreement") between the Department of the Interior 
("Interior") and the Tribe in Quapaw Tribe of Oklahoma v. Department of the Interior, No. 02- 
CV-129-H(M) (N.D. Okla.), does not compromise any claims of any member of the plaintiff 
class in this case. 
1 The Court's August 24, 2004 Order provides that "any reply in support of the brief 
amicus curiae by either the Quapaw Tribe of Oklahoma or defendants shall be filed within three 
days [after filing of Plaintiffs' response]." August 24, 2004 Order at 1.
Plaintiffs also argue that Defendants’ Motion should be denied because Plaintiffs' three 
affiants, who are members of the Quapaw Tribe, do not trust Quapaw Business Committee 
Chairman John Berrey with “their confidential trust information, and oppose any effort by Berrey 
and the government to compromise their claims in this litigation.” Plaintiffs' Response at 3 
(footnote omitted). This argument reflects Plaintiffs’ misunderstanding of the scope of the 
Quapaw Analysis, which is the main feature of the settlement’s contract (“Contract”) between 
Interior's Office of Historical Trust Accounting and the Tribe’s not-for-profit enterprise, Quapaw 
Information Systems, Inc. (“QIS”). In addition to an analysis of Interior’s management of the 
Tribe’s trust fund assets, the Quapaw Analysis involves a limited history of the non-fund trust 
assets of only eight individual Quapaw tribal members who will voluntarily participate in the 
Quapaw Analysis, none of whom are the Plaintiffs' affiants. As noted above, the Settlement 
Agreement does not compromise any claims of the three affiants, the eight individuals who will 
voluntarily participate in the Quapaw Analysis, or any other member of the plaintiff class in this 
litigation. In sum, the picture Plaintiffs paint depicts their erroneous interpretation of the 
Settlement Agreement and offers no basis for preventing the Tribe and the United States from 
moving forward with implementation of their settlement. Their misguided attempt to thwart the 
result of a successful dispute resolution effort should be rejected. 
ARGUMENT 
The Settlement Agreement Does Not Compromise Any Claims In This Litigation. I. 
In their Response, Plaintiffs continue to argue that the settlement will compromise their 
claims in this litigation. See, e.g., Plaintiffs' Response at 4. Plaintiffs challenge Defendants to 
state affirmatively that the Quapaw Analysis will not result in a waiver of Plaintiffs' claims here. 
See id. Defendants have already met this challenge by stating unequivocally in the briefs filed in 
- 2 -
support of their Motion that the settlement documents contain no such waiver; the only claims 
compromised in the Settlement Agreement are those of the Tribe. See Defendants' Motion at 3; 
Defendants' Reply In Support Of Motion For Expedited Clarification Or, In The Alternative, 
Modification Of The December 23, 2002 Order at 2; Settlement Agreement (attached as Exhibit 
1 to Defendants’ Motion, including Exhibit B attached thereto (Joint Motion for Modification of 
Protective Orders and Agreed Stipulation of Dismissal and accompanying proposed order)). The 
Quapaw Analysis is expected to reveal limited information about Interior’s management of 
certain non-monetary trust assets of the eight individual members of the Tribe identified in the 
Contract. It is conceivable that some of the documents collected and some of the information 
analyzed may prove useful in performing Interior's accounting obligations. However, as the 
settlement documents attached to Defendants' Motion make clear, the Settlement Agreement 
does not resolve any claims that the eight individuals (or any other member of the plaintiff class) 
have asserted or may assert against the United States. This is further confirmed by the relevant 
portion of the parties' proposed order to approve the Agreed Stipulation of Dismissal in the 
Quapaw case: 
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED, for purposes of Fed. R. Civ. P. 58, 
as follows: 
1. All claims that have been or could have been 
brought by the Tribe against the United States for: a) an accounting 
of any of the Tribe’s tribal trust fund accounts; b) an accounting of 
any other trust asset of the Tribe; and c) the preparation of a trust 
asset management history for the Tribe, are hereby DISMISSED 
WITH PREJUDICE; 
2. All remaining claims in the above-captioned matter 
are hereby DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE. 
- 3 -
Proposed Order at 2 (accompanying the Joint Motion for Modification of Protective Orders and 
Agreed Stipulation of Dismissal, attached as Exhibit B to the Settlement Agreement) (emphasis 
added). In light of the clear language in the settlement documents and the proposed order, it is 
disingenuous for Plaintiffs to argue that the Settlement Agreement compromises any of their 
claims in this litigation. 
Defendants' Motion does not ask this Court to discharge Defendants of their obligation to 
perform an accounting for the eight individual Quapaw members or any other member of the 
plaintiff class; rather, Defendants simply request that the Court clarify that its December 23, 2002 
Order does not prohibit the Tribe’s enterprise, QIS, from having limited contacts with the eight 
individual Quapaw members so that QIS can collect and analyze information the Tribe believes 
will be beneficial to it. The limited contacts contemplated with eight individuals who are 
voluntarily participating in the Quapaw Analysis cannot possibly "lead to continuing abuse of 
individual Indian trust beneficiaries," Plaintiffs' Response at 2, as Plaintiffs irresponsibly allege. 
Plaintiffs Grossly Mischaracterize The Scope Of The Contract. II. 
As noted above, the Quapaw Analysis will include a limited analysis of Interior’s 
management of the non-fund trust assets of eight individual Quapaw members. These eight 
individual members, who are identified in the Contract, see Contract § C.1.d.(6) (attached as 
Exhibit A to the Settlement Agreement, attached as Exhibit 1 to Defendants' Motion), “expressed 
an interest” in participating in the settlement “so that they could obtain information about 
Interior’s management of their nonfund trust assets.” Amicus Brief at 3-4. These are the only 
individual Indian members for whom QIS is performing a limited non-fund trust asset 
management history. This group of eight individuals does not include any of Plaintiffs’ affiants. 
Plaintiffs’ implication that the Contract encompasses the collection, review, and analysis of 
- 4 -
documents and information concerning the trust assets of the entire plaintiff class is grossly 
misleading. 
Plaintiffs further mischaracterize the scope of the Contract by alleging that QIS will be 
given “unfettered and unmonitored authority to discuss with class members information related 
to the management and administration of Individual Indian Trust (‘IIM Trust’) assets.” Plaintiffs' 
Response at 2. QIS, pursuant to the express Contract terms, may only collect, review and 
analyze documents concerning Interior’s management of the Tribe’s trust fund accounts and 
certain non-monetary trust assets of the eight individual Quapaw members. The Settlement 
Agreement expressly provides that “[t]he component of the Quapaw Analysis addressing 
Interior’s management of certain non-monetary trust assets of the Eight Individuals shall not 
include an analysis of Interior’s management of the Individual Indian Money (“IIM”) accounts of 
either the Eight Individuals or of any other individual member of an Indian tribe.” Settlement 
Agreement, Art. 1, ¶ 1 (attached as Exhibit 1 to Defendants' Motion); see also Contract at 8, § 
C.1 c (attached as Exhibit A to the Settlement Agreement). Plaintiffs’ characterization of the 
scope and effect of the Contract is unsupportable. 
III. The Settlement Agreement Provides for Significant Safeguards to Protect the 
Security of Documents Handled by QIS During Its Performance of the Contract. 
Plaintiffs continue, without support, to voice concerns about QIS’s professional capability 
to handle trust data. See Plaintiffs' Response at 5. The Contract, however, expressly sets forth 
specific safeguards to protect the security of documents. See, e.g., Contract §§ C.1.g.(3)(a), (d); 
id. § H.2 (attached as Exhibit A to the Settlement Agreement, attached as Exhibit 1 to 
Defendants' Motion). QIS, as a party to the Contract, is obligated to abide by these provisions. 
Failure to do so would result in a breach of those provisions of the contract. Furthermore, as 
- 5 -
noted in Defendants’ Motion and Reply Brief, the Contract expressly prohibits QIS from having 
“access to documents or any other information involving or relating to IIM accounts.” Id. § 
C.1.c. In no sense does the Contract permit the unlimited and wide-sweeping access to trust data 
alleged by Plaintiffs. 
Moreover, the Settlement Agreement provides a significant safeguard, wholly ignored by 
Plaintiffs, to protect the confidentiality of the documents and information collected, reviewed, 
and analyzed during performance of the Contract. The United States and the Tribe agreed to 
request that the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma modify the 
protective orders previously entered in the Quapaw case to provide for the confidential treatment 
of the documents and information exchanged during the implementation of the Settlement 
Agreement, including the Quapaw Analysis itself. See Settlement Agreement, Art. 1, ¶ 3; 
proposed Joint Motion for Modification of Protective Orders and Agreed Stipulation for 
Dismissal, ¶ 6, and accompanying Order (attached as Exhibit B to the Settlement Agreement). 
The relevant provisions of the settlement documents make clear that there are sufficient 
safeguards in place to properly protect the documents containing confidential information that 
will be accessed during implementation of the Settlement Agreement. 
- 6 -
CONCLUSION 
For the foregoing reasons, as well as those stated in the briefs filed in support of 
Defendants’ Motion, Defendants' Motion should be granted. 
Respectfully submitted, Dated: September 3, 2004 
ROBERT D. McCALLUM 
Associate Attorney General 
PETER D. KEISLER 
Assistant Attorney General 
STUART E. SCHIFFER 
Deputy Assistant Attorney General 
J. CHRISTOPHER KOHN 
Director 
/s/ Cynthia L. Alexander 
SANDRA P. SPOONER 
Deputy Director 
D.C. Bar No. 261495 
JOHN T. STEMPLEWICZ 
Senior Trial Attorney 
CYNTHIA L. ALEXANDER 
Trial Attorney 
Commercial Litigation Branch 
Civil Division 
P.O. Box 875 
Ben Franklin Station 
Washington, D.C. 20044-0875 
(202) 514-7194 
Attorneys for Defendants 
- 7 -
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE 
I hereby certify that, on September 3, 2004 the foregoing Defendants' Reply to Plaintiffs' 
Response to Amicus Curiae Brief of the Quapaw Tribe of Oklahoma was served by Electronic 
Case Filing, and on the following who is not registered for Electronic Case Filing, by facsimile: 
Earl Old Person (Pro se) 
Blackfeet Tribe 
P.O. Box 850 
Browning, MT 59417 
Fax (406) 338-7530 
/s/ Kevin P. Kingston 
Kevin P. Kingston