Free Joint Status Report - District Court of Federal Claims - federal

Case 1:02-cv-00024-FMA

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UNITED STATES COURT OF FEDERAL CLAIMS PUEBLO OF LAGUNA, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Defendant. ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) )

No. 02-24L Judge Francis M. Allegra

JOINT STATUS REPORT Plaintiff, the Pueblo of Laguna, and Defendant, the United States, (the "parties"), hereby jointly report to the Court regarding their progress on an indexation plan to be submitted to the Court and on other matters.

I.

INDEXATION PLAN STATUS AND DOCUMENT PRODUCTION Since the last status report filed on November 16, 2005, the parties have continued

to work on document production and indexation issues but primarily with respect to Jicarilla v. United States, Docket No. 2-25L. The parties agreed to set aside Pueblo of Laguna document production and indexation to focus first on completing document production and indexation for Jicarilla. To the extent that Plaintiff has received some Pueblo of Laguna records from United States repositories, it has been because Plaintiff happened upon them while looking for Jicarilla records. The parties anticipate proceeding with Pueblo of Laguna document production and indexing at an appropriate future time. The parties anticipate benefitting at that time from the experience gained in completing Jicarilla document production and indexing. As with 1

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the Jicarilla case, if the parties are unable to agree upon reasonable document production indexation methods, they will of course bring any unresolved issues to the attention of the Court. The parties will continue to report to the Court on their efforts and, when practicable, prepare a formal indexation plan as ordered by the Court in its Order of March 19, 2004.

II.

ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION The parties anticipate that they will be able to proceed with ADR with respect to

Pueblo of Laguna, in much the same manner as for the Jicarilla case but at an appropriate time and have so advised Settlement Judge Eric G. Bruggink.

III. MAPS Based on the December status report by the Office of Trust Records to United States District Court Judge Lamberth, Counsel for Plaintiff inquired as to the condition of "8 boxes contain[ing] oversized maps" referred to in the report. Counsel for the United States promptly contacted Ms. Ethyl Abeita, Director of the Office of Trust Records, who informed him that none of the maps were of the Jicarilla or Laguna reservations. She has also advised that none of the maps are damaged although it is NARA's intention to make copies for future use by researchers in order to maintain the current condition of the originals.

IV. "LEGACY" TAPES

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On February 1, 2006, counsel for the United States advised Plaintiff's counsel of the intent of Minerals Management Service (MMS) to dispose of 30,000 "legacy" back-up tapes. The Minerals Revenue Management (MRM) division of MMS asserted that the data on these tapes had been duplicated by transfer to the currently utilized Minerals Revenue Management Support System (MRMSS) some 4-5 years ago . On that same date, February 1, 2006, via e- mail communication, Plaintiff's counsel advised Defendant's counsel that Plaintiff was of the view that the tapes were covered by the Record Retention Order previously entered herein and further that Plaintiff objected to the destruction of those tapes because, given the information then available to Plaintiff, it was understood that the conversion did not accurately and completely duplicate everything that was on these "legacy" tapes. On February 8, 2006 in a subsequent e-mail communication Plaintiff's counsel elaborated upon its reasons for believing that all of the "legacy" tape data had not been duplicated accurately and completely. Furthermore, Plaintiff's counsel emphasized the need to preserve the "legacy" tapes, not only for access to data that could only be found on these irreplaceable tapes, but for evidence of what is not on the tapes. The parties were able to resolve this matter by conferring between themselves. The attorney of record for the United States assured Plaintiff's counsel that the tapes would be preserved while the issues raised in Plaintiff's letter to Defendant's counsel on this matter remained in dispute. The parties agreed that, if necessary, the matter of the preservation of the tapes would be brought before the Court and that the tapes would continue to be preserved during any such proceedings.

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The parties shall report further to the Court on these matters of indexation and production of documents on or before May 16, 2006 unless the Court orders otherwise or unless intervening events warrant an earlier report.

Respectfully submitted this 15th day of February, 2006.

/s Alan R. Taradash by /s Donald H. Grove _____________________________ Alan R. Taradash Nordhaus Law Firm, LLP 405 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. NE Albuquerque, NM 87102-3541 telephone: 505-243-4275 facsimile: 505-243-4464

Attorney of Record for Plaintiff

/s Robert Rodrigues by /s Donald H. Grove _____________________________ Robert Rodrigues U.S. Department of Justice Environment and Natural Resources Division General Litigation Section P.O. Box 663 Washington, DC 20044-0663 telephone: 202-305-0484 facsimile: 202-305-0506 Attorney of Record for Defendant

Thomas J. Peckham Daniel I.S.J. Rey-Bear Deidre A. Lujan Nordhaus Law Firm, LLP 405 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Ave NE Albuquerque, NM 87102 telephone 505-243-4275 Of Counsel Donald H. Grove Nordhaus Law Firm, LLP Suite 801 1401 K Street NW Washington, DC 20005 telephone 202-530-1270 Of Counsel

Martin LaLonde Laura Maroldy U.S. Department of Justice Environment and Natural Resources Division Natural Resources Section P.O. Box 663 Washington, DC 20044-0663

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