Leatrice Tanner-Brown, Personal Representative of the Estate of George W. Curls, Sr. v. Debra A. Haaland, Secretary of the Interior

United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
Argued May 9, 2024 Decided June 25, 2024
No. 22-5302
LEATRICE TANNER-BROWN, PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE OF
THE ESTATE OF GEORGE W. CURLS, SR., AND OF THE CLASS OF
SIMILARLY SITUATED INDIVIDUALS AND HARVEST INSTITUTE
FREEDMEN FEDERATION, LLC, ON BEHALF OF ITSELF AND ALL
PERSONS SIMILARLY SITUATED,
APPELLANTS
v.
DEBRA A. HAALAND, SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR AND TARA
MACLEAN SWEENEY, ASSISTANT SECRETARY INDIAN AFFAIRS,
APPELLEES
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Columbia
(No. 1:21-cv-00565)
Percy Squire argued the cause and filed the briefs for
appellants.
Benjamin W. Richmond, Attorney, U.S. Department of
Justice, argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief
were Todd Kim, Assistant Attorney General, and William B.
Lazarus and John L. Smeltzer, Attorneys.

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Before: HENDERSON, MILLETT and CHILDS, Circuit
Judges.
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge HENDERSON.
KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge: Appellant
Leatrice Tanner-Brown is a descendant of people enslaved by
the Cherokee Tribe and emancipated at the end of the Civil
War. Her grandfather, George Curls, received land allotments
as a minor. Tanner-Brown and the Harvest Institute Freedman
Federation, LLC (HIFF) brought suit seeking various remedies
related to the allotments, including an accounting from the
Secretary of the Interior arising from the alleged creation of a
trust relationship between the federal government and Indian
beneficiaries.
The district court dismissed the case for lack of standing,
finding that Tanner-Brown failed to establish that she was
injured by not receiving an accounting on the ground that there
was no trust relationship between Curls and the federal
government and that HIFF failed to satisfy the requirements for
associational standing. Although HIFF cannot sustain
standing, Tanner-Brown has alleged a concrete injury-in-fact
sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.
We affirm the district court in part, reverse in part and remand
the case for further proceedings.
I. BACKGROUND
Before and during the Civil War, the Seminole, Cherokee,
Choctaw, Creek and Chickasaw Tribes kept slaves and allied
with the Confederacy. Tanner-Brown v. Haaland, 2022 WL
2643556, at *1 (D.D.C. July 8, 2022) (Tanner-Brown I) (citing
Compl. ¶ 13); see also Cherokee Nation v. Nash, 267 F. Supp.
3d 86, 97 (D.D.C. 2017). These tribes, residing in the southern

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United States, were sometimes called the “Five Civilized
Tribes”; we use the term “Five Tribes” herein. See Cherokee
Nation, 267 F. Supp. 3d at 90 n.3. After the Civil War, the
United States entered into a series of treaties that, among other
things, abolished slavery in the Five Tribes and provided
certain rights (including property rights) for the formerly
enslaved people (known as “Freedmen”). Tanner-Brown I,
2022 WL 2643556, at *1.
In 1898, the Congress enacted the Curtis Act, 30 Stat. 495,
which allotted the land of the Five Tribes with certain
restrictions to specific groups of individuals with some
enslavement history. Ten years later, the Congress enacted the
law that is central to this case. Act of May 27, 1908, 35 Stat.
312 (the 1908 Act); see Tanner-Brown I, 2022 WL 2643556,
at *2.
Section 1 of the 1908 Act provides: “All lands, including
homesteads, of said allottees enrolled as intermarried whites,
as freedmen, and as mixed-blood Indians having less than half
Indian blood including minors shall be free from all
restrictions.” 1908 Act § 1 (emphasis added); see Plains Com.
Bank v. Long Fam. Land & Cattle Co., 554 U.S. 316, 331
(2008).1
Section 2 provides that lands “from which restrictions
have not been removed may be leased” by the adult allottee or,
if the allottee is a “minor or incompetent,” by a “guardian or
curator” on the allottee’s behalf. 1908 Act § 2.
1 “[E]nrolled” refers to the process of securing tribal
membership, one means of establishing an individual’s status as a
Native American and/or his tribal identification. 42 C.J.S. Indians
§ 21.

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Section 6 provides in relevant part:
That the persons and property of minor allottees
of the Five Civilized Tribes shall, except as
otherwise specifically provided by law, be
subject to the jurisdiction of the probate courts
of the State of Oklahoma. The Secretary of the
Interior is hereby empowered, under rules and
regulations to be prescribed by him, to appoint
such local representatives within the State of
Oklahoma who shall be citizens of that State or
now domiciled therein as he may deem
necessary to inquire into and investigate the
conduct of guardians or curators having in
charge the estates of such minors, and whenever
such representative or representatives of the
Secretary of the Interior shall be of [the] opinion
that the estate of any minor is not being properly
cared for by the guardian or curator, or that the
same is in any manner being dissipated or
wasted or being permitted to deteriorate in value
by reason of the negligence or carelessness or
incompetency of the guardian or curator, said
representative or representatives of the
Secretary of the Interior shall have power and it
shall be their duty to report said matter in full to
the proper probate court and take the necessary
steps to have such matter fully investigated, and
go to the further extent of prosecuting any
necessary remedy, either civil or criminal, or
both, to preserve the property and protect the
interests of said minor allottees; and it shall be
the further duty of such representative or
representatives to make full and complete
reports to the Secretary of the Interior.

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Id. § 6.
The Supreme Court has held that Sections 2 and 6 of the
1908 Act apply to the allotments of minors, notwithstanding
the language in Section 1 removing restrictions from the
allotments held by minor Freedmen. Truskett v. Closser, 236
U.S. 223, 229 (1915).
Appellant Leatrice Tanner-Brown is the granddaughter
and personal representative of the estate of George Curls, who
was the son of former Cherokee slaves and was enrolled as a
Cherokee Freedman when he was five years old. Tanner-
Brown I, 2022 WL 2643556, at *3. She alleges that her
grandfather received forty-acre and twenty-acre allotment
deeds from the Cherokee Tribe when he was a minor and that
the allotments were leased for oil and gas drilling that
generated substantial revenue. According to her complaint, the
restriction against alienation of Curls’ allotments (and all
Freedmen allotments) were not removed by the 1908 Act so
that any funds derived from the allotments should have been
accounted for by the U.S. Department of the Interior (Interior)
pursuant to Sections 2 and 6. She further alleges, however, that
Interior has no record of these funds.
Appellant Harvest Institute Freedmen’s Federation (HIFF)
is a limited liability company created to “vindicat[e] the rights
and interests of [] Freedmen.” Compl. ¶ 9. It names Tanner-
Brown as a member and purports to represent other members
who are “representatives of other now deceased Freedmen with
a direct personal stake in receipt of damages for breach of
fiduciary duties owed to them by Defendants.” Id. HIFF does
not identify any members other than Tanner-Brown.
Tanner-Brown and HIFF have filed multiple lawsuits over
the past decade on behalf of Freedmen and minor Freedmen.
In 2014, they filed a putative class action on behalf of

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descendants of Freedmen minor allottees of the Five Tribes,
alleging that the Interior Secretary breached his fiduciary duty
as to the allotments. Tanner-Brown v. Jewell, 153 F. Supp. 3d
102, 104 (D.D.C. 2016). The district court dismissed the suit
for lack of Article III standing, finding that (1) Tanner-Brown
failed to plead a concrete injury because she brought suit only
in her personal capacity as a descendant of Curls and her
hereditary relationship was insufficient to establish injury; (2)
even if Tanner-Brown had standing, the complaint failed to
allege that Curls had ever suffered a concrete, traceable injury
because it did not allege that his specific allotments had oil or
gas leases or any royalties therefrom; and (3) HIFF failed to
plead associational standing adequately because it provided no
information about its members. Id. at 109-13. We affirmed the
district court’s ruling. Tanner-Brown v. Zinke, 709 F. App’x
17 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (per curiam), cert. denied 139 S. Ct. 171
(2018).
Tanner-Brown and HIFF filed this suit in March 2021,
using a theory similar to that in the 2014 suit and alleging that
the Interior Secretary breached fiduciary duties under Section
6 of the 1908 Act. They sought class certification, a declaratory
judgment, an order directing defendants to provide plaintiffs an
accounting and attorneys’ fees. See Tanner-Brown I, 2022 WL
2643556, at *1 n.1 (noting large portions of the 2021 complaint
are “identical” to the 2014 complaint).
The district court dismissed for lack of standing. It found
that Tanner-Brown provided the “necessary link” to Curls by
alleging that she is the personal representative of his estate and
focused its inquiry on Curls’ alleged injury-in-fact. Id.
(quoting Zinke, 709 F. App’x at 20). The court held that the
complaint failed to allege a concrete and particularized injury
traceable to the defendants because it did not allege that Curls’
leases were being mismanaged or provide any basis for

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believing that “had Defendants fulfilled their purported
statutory duty, Mr. Curls would have received royalties or at
least royalties in a greater amount than any that he did receive.”
Id. (quoting Jewell, 153 F. Supp. 3d at 110 n.5). The court also
found that HIFF lacked standing because it failed to show two
of the three requirements for associational standing: (1) that its
members would have standing to sue in their own right and (2)
that the participation of individual members in the lawsuit was
not required for the claim asserted or relief requested. Id. at
*6-7.
After the district court’s dismissal, the plaintiffs moved to
alter or amend the judgment pursuant to Rule 59(e), arguing
based on common-law principles of trust law that they “cannot
assert an injury sufficient to establish standing because a trust
beneficiary must first receive an accounting before determining
whether a trust has been mismanaged” and that “trust
beneficiaries are entitled to an accounting regardless of
whether an injury has been shown.” Tanner-Brown v.
Haaland, 639 F. Supp. 3d 1, 5 (D.D.C. 2022) (Tanner-Brown
II). The district court found that plaintiffs’ arguments
amounted to a new version of their standing argument;
nevertheless, it considered the merits “for purposes of
facilitating the resolution of th[e] case” and rejected the new
arguments as meritless. Id. It concluded that the plaintiffs
failed to show that the 1908 Act creates a trust relationship
between the plaintiffs and the Interior Secretary because
Section 6 suggests the Secretary’s accounting duties are
discretionary and should not be read to create a trust
relationship in the absence of any specific language indicating
congressional intent to do so. Id. at 6-7. This appeal followed.

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II. STANDING
“We review the district court’s standing determinations de
novo.” Williams v. Lew, 819 F.3d 466, 471 (D.C. Cir. 2016).
The “irreducible constitutional minimum of standing” requires
that the plaintiff suffer an injury in fact fairly traceable to the
challenged conduct of the defendant that can likely be
redressed by a favorable judicial decision. Lujan v. Defenders
of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61 (1992).
“The plaintiff bears the burden of invoking the court’s
subject matter jurisdiction, including establishing the elements
of standing.” Arpaio v. Obama, 797 F.3d 11, 19 (D.C. Cir.
2015) (citing Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561). We accept the factual
allegations in the plaintiffs’ complaint as true and draw all
reasonable inferences from those facts in their favor. Humane
Soc’y of the U.S. v. Vilsack, 797 F.3d 4, 8 (D.C. Cir. 2015).
A. Tanner-Brown’s Standing
Tanner-Brown’s theory of standing is premised on the
alleged creation of a trust relationship and attendant fiduciary
duties between the Interior Secretary and the minor allottees
under Section 6 of the 1908 Act. She argues that Curls was
injured by the Secretary’s failure to provide an accounting of
the allotment, an injury that runs to her as the representative of
Curls’ estate.
At the outset, the government maintains that this version
of Tanner-Brown’s injury-in-fact argument is forfeited because
she raised it in her Rule 59(e) motion after the district court’s
dismissal. But the forfeiture doctrine operates in our judicial
system to avoid (1) surprise to litigants should an issue be
decided on appeal “upon which they have had no opportunity
to introduce evidence” and (2) the “[e]normous confusion and

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interminable delay [that] would result if counsel were
permitted to appeal upon points not presented to the court
below.” District of Columbia v. Air Fla., Inc., 750 F.2d 1077,
1084-85 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (first quoting Hormel v. Helvering,
312 U.S. 552, 556 (1941); then quoting Johnston v. Reily, 160
F.2d 249, 250 (D.C. Cir. 1947)). These concerns are eliminated
if the district court has in fact considered the new claim. See,
e.g., Lebron v. Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp., 513 U.S. 374, 379
(1995) (“even if this were a claim not raised by petitioner
below, we would ordinarily feel free to address it, since it was
addressed by the court below” (emphasis omitted)); Cmty.
House, Inc. v. City of Boise, 490 F.3d 1041, 1054 (9th Cir.
2007) (“even if a party fails to raise an issue in the district court,
we generally will not deem the issue waived if the district court
actually considered it”). The government has had a full
opportunity to respond to the plaintiffs’ argument, both in the
Rule 59(e) proceedings and now on appeal. We agree that it
conserves judicial resources for us to rule on plaintiffs’
standing theory “for purposes of facilitating the resolution of
this case,” as the district court concluded. Tanner-Brown II,
639 F. Supp. 3d at 5. Moreover, the argument Tanner-Brown
pursues on appeal is evident from the face of the complaint.
She asserted a claim for an accounting, alleging that
“Defendants have a duty under Section 6 of the [1908 Act] to
provide an accounting” and requesting that the court “order
Defendants to provide Plaintiffs an accounting.” Compl.
¶¶ 36-39, §§ IX-X. There is no cause to find forfeiture here.
We turn to whether Tanner-Brown has alleged a legal
theory and facts sufficient to establish a cognizable injury-in-
fact. See Parker v. District of Columbia, 478 F.3d 370, 377-78
(D.C. Cir. 2007). In conducting this analysis, we “must be
careful not to decide the questions on the merits for or against
the plaintiff, and must therefore assume that on the merits the
plaintiffs would be successful in their claims.” City of

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Waukesha v. E.P.A., 320 F.3d 228, 235 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (per
curiam).
The Supreme Court has explained that Article III injuries
must be “‘concrete’—that is, ‘real, and not abstract.’”
TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413, 424 (2021)
(quoting Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U. S. 330, 340 (2016)). In
determining whether a harm is sufficiently concrete, “history
and tradition offer a meaningful guide to the types of cases that
Article III empowers federal courts to consider.” Sprint
Commc’ns Co. v. APCC Servs., Inc., 554 U.S. 269, 274 (2008).
“[T]raditional tangible harms, such as physical harms and
monetary harms” are clear examples of concrete Article III
injuries. TransUnion, 594 U.S. at 425. Certain intangible
harms may be concrete, especially if they have a “close
relationship to harms traditionally recognized as providing a
basis for lawsuits in American courts.” Id.
The Congress may also “elevat[e] to the status of legally
cognizable injuries concrete, de facto injuries that were
previously inadequate in law.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 578. In these
cases, the court typically analyzes the rights-granting statute as
part of its standing analysis to determine whether the plaintiffs
have sufficiently pleaded an injury. For example, in Friends of
Animals v. Jewell, this court considered an alleged
informational injury arising from statute and explained that the
plaintiff failed to plead an injury because it was “seeking to
enforce a statutory deadline provision that by its terms does not
require the public disclosure of information.” 828 F.3d 989,
992 (D.C. Cir. 2016).
Here, Tanner-Brown has alleged that her injury is the lack
of an accounting regarding property held in trust by the United
States. A trustee’s failure to furnish an accounting to a
beneficiary is a concrete harm grounded in “basic common law

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trust principles” and “traditional equit[y].” Cobell v. Norton,
240 F.3d 1081, 1103 (D.C. Cir. 2001); see also id. (“Under
traditional equitable trust principles, ‘[t]he trustee’s report must
contain sufficient information for the beneficiary readily to
ascertain whether the trust has been faithfully carried out.’”
(quoting White Mountain Apache Tribe of Arizona v. United
States, 26 Cl. Ct. 446, 449 (1992), aff’d, 5 F.3d 1506 (Fed. Cir.
1993)). Her alleged injury is thus rooted in “American history
and tradition” and is the type of harm “traditionally recognized
as providing a basis for lawsuits in American courts.”
TransUnion, 594 U.S. at 424-25.
The district court rejected Tanner-Brown’s alleged injury-
in-fact after analyzing Section 6 of the 1908 Act. It concluded
that the Secretary’s statutory duties are discretionary and
therefore the Act does not create a trust relationship because
there can be no claim for an accounting in the absence of any
duty to furnish one. Tanner-Brown II, 639 F. Supp. 3d at 6-7.
We conclude that this approach was erroneous under
established standing doctrine.
“The Supreme Court has made clear that when considering
whether a plaintiff has Article III standing, a federal court must
assume arguendo the merits of his or her legal claim.” Parker,
478 F.3d at 377 (citing Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 501-02
(1975)). We have explained in the context of a constitutional
claim that it would be “doctrinally quite unsound” to assess
standing “by first extensively analyzing th[e] provision,
determining that it does not provide an individual right, and
then, and only then, concluding that the plaintiff lacked
standing.” Id. at 376-77. Such an approach would amount to
“premature judicial involvement” and “substantive
adjudication in the absence of a ‘case or controversy,’” Jud.
Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Senate, 432 F.3d 359, 364 (D.C. Cir. 2005)
(Williams, J., concurring). Instead, we must consider standing

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separately from the merits by assuming that the plaintiff will
ultimately prevail on her legal theory. See, e.g., Warth, 422
U.S. at 502 (assuming legal theory of complaint is cognizable
when assessing standing).2
At oral argument, Interior urged us to adopt the reasoning
in Fletcher v. United States, 26 F.4th 1314 (Fed. Cir. 2022). In
that case, the Federal Circuit found that individual holders of
Osage headrights, not simply the Tribe, had standing to pursue
breach of trust claims after extensively analyzing the relevant
statute and concluding that the statute gave rise to a trust
relationship between the headright owners and the federal
government. Id. at 1322-24. The Federal Circuit relied on
Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560, to define an injury-in-fact as the
“invasion of a legally protected interest,” concluding that “[i]n
the context of the [plaintiffs’] breach of trust claims, the
plaintiffs must show the existence of a trust relationship with
the government.” Fletcher, 26 F.4th at 1322. This case is
different from Fletcher.
The Supreme Court’s use of the phrase “legally protected
interest” in Lujan is best understood as referring to a cognizable
interest rather than imposing a new requirement that the
invaded interest be affirmatively protected by positive law. See
Jud. Watch, 432 F.3d at 363 (Williams, J., concurring); Parker,
478 F.3d at 377. As Judge Williams persuasively explained in
his concurring opinion in Judicial Watch, the strongest
evidence for this reading is in Lujan itself: after referring to the
2 There is a narrow exception to this general rule if the claim
“clearly appears to be immaterial and made solely for the purpose of
obtaining jurisdiction or where such a claim is wholly insubstantial
and frivolous.” Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83,
89 (1998) (quotation omitted). The Secretary has not argued that
Tanner-Brown’s claim falls into this exception and we see no reason
to consider it here.

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requirement of a “legally protected interest,” the Supreme
Court found that the “desire to use or observe an animal
species, even for purely esthetic purposes, is undeniably a
cognizable interest for purpose of standing.” Lujan, 504 U.S.
at 562-63 (emphasis added); see Jud. Watch, 432 F.3d at 363
(Williams, J., concurring). At the same time, however, the
Lujan Court did not identify any source of positive law giving
rise to the cognizable interest in observing an animal species.
See Lujan, 504 U.S. at 562-63; Jud. Watch, 432 F.3d at 363-64
(Williams, J., concurring).
We believe that the Secretary overreads Fletcher. First,
there was no dispute in Fletcher that a trust relationship
existed. See Fletcher, 26 F.4th at 1322-1324; Fletcher Opening
Br. at 20, Fletcher, 26 F.4th 1314 (No. 21-1625); Government
Br. at 22, Fletcher, 26 F.4th 1314 (No. 21-1625). In that
context, both the plaintiffs and the government couched the
argument about who could recover under the trust as a standing
issue. Fletcher Opening Br. at 19-27, Fletcher, 26 F.4th 1314
(No. 21-1625); Government Br. at 46-54, Fletcher, 26 F.4th
1314 (Fed. Cir. 2022) (No. 21-1625); Oral Argument, Fletcher,
26 F.4th 1314 (No. 21-1625), ECF No. 59; see Fletcher, 26
F.4th at 1322. Neither side argued that the question of who
held the trust interest should be addressed as a merits question
rather than a standing question and so that question was never
joined in Fletcher.
Here, however, the existence of a trust at all is the merits
question before us and the parties expressly dispute whether
that question is best framed as a standing or merits inquiry.
Under our precedent and the Supreme Court’s, whether a trust
relationship exists between a plaintiff and the federal
government is best characterized as a substantive merits
decision that should not be reached unless and until there is

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Article III standing. See Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t,
523 U.S. 83, 89-102 (1998).
The standing question before us, then, requires that we
assume that Tanner-Brown is correct on her legal theory that
the statute could give rise to a trust relationship with attendant
fiduciary duties under certain circumstances, including if a
guardian or representative were appointed by the Secretary or
the history of the government’s control created a trust. On her
theory of the case and the facts alleged in the complaint, she
has asserted a cognizable injury-in-fact, as explained supra.
Tanner-Brown also satisfies the causation and redressability
requirements of Article III standing. Her injury of not having
received an accounting to which she is entitled is fairly
traceable to the Secretary’s failure to provide one and could be
redressed by a favorable decision on the merits. We therefore
conclude that she has standing to assert her claim for an
accounting.
B. HIFF’s Standing
HIFF claims associational standing, requiring it to show
that “(a) its members would otherwise have standing to sue in
their own right; (b) the interests it seeks to protect are germane
to the organization’s purpose; and (c) neither the claim asserted
nor the relief requested requires the participation of individual
members in the lawsuit.” Hunt v. Washington State Apple
Advert. Comm’n, 432 U.S. 333, 343 (1977). The first prong is
satisfied because HIFF identifies Tanner-Brown as a member
and Tanner-Brown has met Article III standing requirements.
Interior does not dispute the second prong.
Our analysis therefore focuses on the third prong, whether
the claim asserted and relief requested require individualized
determinations. This requirement is prudential and reflects a

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“judicially self-imposed limit on the exercise of federal
jurisdiction” rather than a “constitutional mandate,” focusing
instead on “matters of administrative convenience and
efficiency.” United Food & Com. Workers Union Loc. 751 v.
Brown Grp., Inc., 517 U.S. 544, 557 (1996) (cleaned up).
As the district court explained, the nature of this suit
“necessarily requires ‘consideration of the individual
circumstances of any aggrieved member of the organization.’”
Tanner-Brown I, 2022 WL 2643556, at *7 (quoting Ctr. for
Sustainable Econ. v. Jewell, 779 F.3d 588, 597 (D.C. Cir.
2015)). Here, given the nature of the trust claim, a claim for an
accounting requires information about an individual allottee’s
property, its lease terms and any earlier appointment of a
representative or legally analogous action by the Secretary.
HIFF does not explain how the court can “order Defendants to
provide Plaintiffs an accounting,” Compl. § X(c)—the relief
requested in the complaint—without making individualized
findings regarding specific allotments held in trust for specific
allottees.
Moreover, HIFF does not purport to represent the interests
of any member not already party to the suit. HIFF identifies
Tanner-Brown as its sole named member and its standing rests
wholly on her claim. The Third Circuit considered a similar
fact pattern in which the association’s “claim to standing is
grounded on the claims of its members . . . who are also
plaintiffs in the lawsuit[,] . . . [u]nlike other cases conferring
standing on organizations.” Blunt v. Lower Merion Sch. Dist.,
767 F.3d 247, 290 (3d Cir. 2014). The Blunt court denied
associational standing not only because the claims required
individualized assessments but also because it would not
further “‘administrative convenience and efficiency’” to permit
the association to litigate on behalf of its members “when those
members are already parties to the lawsuit in their own right.”

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Id. (quoting United Food, 517 U.S. at 557). So too here. The
claim for an accounting pursuant to Section 6 requires
individual determinations and HIFF’s participation in the suit
would be redundant with Tanner-Brown’s. Accordingly, we
affirm the district court’s holding that HIFF does not have
standing to pursue this litigation.
III. MERITS
Interior urges us to affirm the district court’s dismissal on
the alternate ground that Tanner-Brown has failed to state a
claim for which relief could be granted under Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), arguing that Section 6 does not
impose any enforceable fiduciary duties on the Secretary and
so there is no legal obligation to provide an accounting. This
argument raises factual questions we cannot resolve at this
juncture.
Although there is a “general trust relationship between the
United States and the Indian People,” United States v. Mitchell,
463 U.S. 206, 225 (1983), the Supreme Court has explained
that this relationship in itself does not give rise to any fiduciary
obligation of the federal government. Rather, there must be
“specific rights-creating or duty-imposing statutory or
regulatory prescriptions.” United States v. Navajo Nation, 537
U.S. 488, 506 (2003). “The Government assumes Indian trust
responsibilities only to the extent it expressly accepts those
responsibilities by statute.” United States v. Jicarilla Apache
Nation, 564 U.S. 162, 177 (2011) (footnote omitted).
Section 6 details the extent of the Secretary’s duties owed
to minor allottees. The Secretary is “empowered” to appoint
“local representatives” “as he may deem necessary to inquire
into and investigate the conduct of guardians or curators having
in charge the estates of such minors.” 1908 Act § 6. The

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statute thus initially confers a discretionary power: the
Secretary may choose, but is not obligated, to appoint a
representative if she deems it necessary. If the representative
then concludes that a minor’s allotment is not being properly
cared for, he “shall have power and it shall be [his] duty” to
report the matter to the probate court, have the matter fully
investigated, prosecute any remedy necessary to protect the
minor allottee’s interests and “make full and complete reports
to the Secretary.” Id. Once the Secretary takes the
discretionary step of appointing a representative and the
representative forms the opinion that the allotment is not being
properly cared for, then, there are certain statutory duties owed
to the minor allottees.
We do not know if the federal government owes any duty
to Curls’ estate because we do not know whether the Secretary
appointed a representative to oversee his allotment pursuant to
Section 6. Tanner-Brown seeks an accounting because she
lacks information that is likely to be in Interior’s possession
regarding Curls’ estate—including whether a representative
was appointed. We do know that federal courts were involved
with Curls to some extent because Tanner-Brown submitted
public filings from the U.S. Court for the Indian Territory in a
case captioned In the matter of the Guardianship of Willie
Curls, Edward Curls, James Curls, George Curls, Stephenia
Curls, Beatrice Curls and Julius Curls. See Mem. in Opp. to
the Gov’t’s Mot. to Dismiss, App. F at 2, 20, 69, Tanner-
Brown v. de la Vega, Civ. No. 14-1065 (D.D.C. Oct. 21, 2021),
ECF No. 18-6. But we cannot speak to the factual and legal
import of these filings given the lack of information available
to Tanner-Brown, especially in the absence of any factual
findings on the merits by the district court.
At this stage, we do not decide the extent of the federal
government’s fiduciary duties, if any, owed to Curls’ estate.

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“Given the state of the record and the factual intricacies
intertwined with [Tanner-Brown’s] allegations, we are
unwilling to delve into questions that the district court did not
address.” Jones v. Bernanke, 557 F.3d 670, 681 (D.C. Cir.
2009) (cleaned up). We remand for the district court to
consider the merits of Tanner-Brown’s allegations and the
relevant record documents in the first instance.
Interior also asks us to affirm the district court’s dismissal
on the alternative ground that the plaintiffs’ suit is time-barred,
arguing that the six-year statute of limitations began to run
when Curls knew he had not been provided with an accounting
(in 1918, when he turned twenty-one) or when Interior took the
legal position in 2007 that it did not owe a trust duty under
Section 6. The statute of limitations on claims “concerning
losses to or mismanagement of trust funds,” however, does not
run “until the affected tribe or individual Indian has been
furnished with an accounting of such funds from which the
beneficiary can determine whether there has been a loss.”
Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014, Pub. L. No. 113-76,
128 Stat. 5, 305-06; see Jewell, 153 F. Supp. 3d at 107 n.3.
Because this statute may affect the statute of limitations
analysis and the district court did not reach this argument, “we
will follow our usual (although hardly universal) practice of
declining to address arguments unaddressed by the district
court.” Pollack v. Hogan, 703 F.3d 117, 121 (D.C. Cir. 2012)
(per curiam). We leave the legal and factual questions
involving the statute of limitations for consideration on
remand.
* * *
For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the district court’s
decision that Tanner-Brown does not have Article III standing
and affirm its decision that HIFF lacks associational standing.

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We remand for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion.
So ordered.

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