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$7B proposed over Indian trusts suit
Breaking Legal News |
2007/03/07 10:50
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Native American plaintiffs in the decade-old Indian Trust case have rejected a new $7 billion settlement proposal from the US government but the chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee nonetheless says he will hold a hearing later this month to provide administration officials, plaintiffs, and representatives from other interested parties an opportunity to testify publicly on the settlement offer. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) says the government is admitting liability, but Department of the Interior officials have disputed that interpretation. Native plaintiffs say that the offer does not go far enough, being "pennies on the dollar" in respect of the value of their claim, and that it goes too far in precluding further claims. The class-action Indian trust litigation involves the alleged mismanagement by the US Department of the Interior of American Indian money - lease and sales revenues, permit fees and and interest - received and held for Native Americans by the US government over the last 120 years. In July, the Cobell plaintiffs said they might consider an $8 billion settlement, much lower than the $27.5 billion figure that the plaintiffs demanded for settlement in 2005. |
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Class action or a representative action is a form of lawsuit in which a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court and/or in which a class of defendants is being sued. This form of collective lawsuit originated in the United States and is still predominantly a U.S. phenomenon, at least the U.S. variant of it. In the United States federal courts, class actions are governed by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule. Since 1938, many states have adopted rules similar to the FRCP. However, some states like California have civil procedure systems which deviate significantly from the federal rules; the California Codes provide for four separate types of class actions. As a result, there are two separate treatises devoted solely to the complex topic of California class actions. Some states, such as Virginia, do not provide for any class actions, while others, such as New York, limit the types of claims that may be brought as class actions. They can construct your law firm a brand new website, lawyer website templates and help you redesign your existing law firm site to secure your place in the internet. |
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