The Osage Nation's 11-year-old trust case against the federal government likely will end in December with the largest tribal trust settlement in United States history, an attorney told a tribal council on Wednesday morning.
After attorney Wilson Pipestem, one of the lawyers who represented the tribe in the trust case, presented the $380 million settlement agreement, the Osage Minerals Council unanimously gave its preliminary approval. The money is to be divided between those who own headrights, or shares of the tribe's subsurface mineral estate that lies beneath all of oil-rich Osage County.
"Given the history of tribal litigation for trust mismanagement, this is probably about as good as it's going to get," said tribal member and headright owner Joe Conner of Fairfax. "And given the political environment right now, this is a minor miracle."
Not all agreed.
"Chump change!" exclaimed one woman after the meeting.
Shareholder Patricia Spurrier Bright was cautious: "When I've got a check in my hand, I'll believe it. Where is the government going to get the money? The United States is broke."
As the case has progressed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Judge Emily Hewitt found that the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs had grossly mismanaged Osage oil and gas money. Last year, she issued a $330 million judgment against the federal government for mismanagement between 1972 and 2000, the first time span litigated in the case. Pipestem said that judgment was not a sure bet because it could be appealed. Pre-1972 claims in the case are scheduled for trial early next year, but the settlement would end the case.
"This will be it," Pipestem said.
Before the settlement is finalized, the trust team that negotiated it will meet with Osage shareholders to get their feedback. The first meeting is slated for Aug. 24 at 6:30 p.m. at the Wah-Zha-Zhi Cultural Center in Pawhuska. Only tribal members with headrights will be allowed to attend. Minerals Council Chair Galen Crum said that a password-protected website will also be launched for Osages to ask questions and stay abreast of developments in the settlement.
The settlement announced Wednesday means that, barring an unforeseen legal breakdown, the government will pay $345.8 million into the tribal trust account by Oct. 30, and checks will be cut to individual headright owners by Dec. 5. The amount each shareholder will receive will depend on how many headrights each owns. There are a a total of 2,229 Osage headrights, and $155,136 will be paid out for each whole one. Many headrights were fractionated as they were passed down over generations, but some people have multiple shares.
Attorneys who fought the case for the Osages will take 9 percent of the total settlement, or $34.2 million, as their contingency fee.
About 30 percent of headrights are owned by non-Osage people and, as Pipestem said, "non-humans" – churches, universities, corporations and other entities. Those, too, will receive payments under the settlement.
That irks Osages because some of those headrights were transferred to white people during the "Reign of Terror" that gripped the tribe in the 1920s, when the oil boom made Osages the richest people per capita in the world and attractive to swindlers and killers. In 1978, the U.S. Congress made it illegal to permanently transfer headlights from an Osage to any non-Osage person or entity.
Many headrights were also willed by Osages to the Catholic Church, the University of Oklahoma, and other groups.
The settlement "follows the trust machinery that's been in place for over 100 years," Pipestem explained to Osages who don't want anyone outside the tribe to get paid in the agreement. "Non-Osage shareholders have trust property rights. That is a reality this settlement will have to face. It's not perfect, but there are certain things we have to face."
The settlement is the culmination of months of negotiations between a tribal trust team made up of Chief John Red Eagle, Osage Congresswoman Jerri Jean Branstetter, and Minerals Councilors Dudley Whitehorn, Cynthia Boone and Galen Crum.
"it was a lot of work," said Whitehorn, who chaired the trust team. "…And $155,000 is a lot of cottonpickin' money."
Whitehorn said that his main regret is that the case took 11 years to litigate. After his colleague Myron Red Eagle read the names of 20 Osage shareholders who have died recently, Whitehorn said: "Those 20 people won't ever see this money.
"It took too long to get."
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