Free Notice (Other) - District Court of Federal Claims - federal

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IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF FEDERAL CLAIMS ) ) ) Plaintiff, ) ) ) ) v. ) ) THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) ) Defendant. ) __________________________________________) THE OSAGE NATION AND/OR TRIBE OF INDIANS OF OKLAHOMA,

Electronically Filed April 6, 2005 No. 00-169 L Judge Emily C. Hewitt

THE OSAGE NATION'S FIRST NOTICE IDENTIFYING TRANCHE ONE BOXES FOR EXPEDITED DISCOVERY Pursuant to paragraph 1(b) of the Court's March 25, 2005 Order, the Osage Nation hereby files this first notice identifying tranche one boxes for expedited discovery. In that Order, the Court stated that it would decide this action in two separate tranches. As defined in that Order, tranche one will encompass the Osage Nation's trust fund mismanagement claims falling within the parameters described in Shoshone Indian Tribe v. United States, 364 F.3d 1339, 1350 (Fed. Cir. 2004), for five oil and gas leases for six months. Trial for tranche one claims is scheduled to begin on December 5, 2005. In order to meet the trial date for tranche one claims, the March 25, 2005 Order establishes a number of interim deadlines for discovery on those claims. Among other things, the Order requires the Osage Nation to file a notice identifying the boxes previously marked for imaging that should be expedited through the imaging queue because they are relevant to tranche one claims.1 Under that Order, the Federal Government is required to produce those images to the Osage

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March 25, 2005 Order at ¶ 1(b).

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Nation on or before May 6, 2005.2 The Order further requires the Osage Nation to file a second such notice on May 13, 2005 and for the Federal Government to respond by June 17, 2005.3 Based on its review to date, the Osage Nation has identified 226 (two hundred twenty-six) boxes that contain one or more documents relevant to tranche one claims.4 Consequently, these boxes should be expedited through the imaging process, and produced on or before May 6, 2005. In order to expedite the production process and reduce the burden on the Federal Government, the Osage Nation divided the 226 boxes into three separate categories. The first category consists of boxes that have been entered in the Box Inventory Search System ("BISS") by the Federal Government. These boxes have been designated as a priority for tranche one discovery based upon the information included in the BISS indices and are identified in Exhibit A according to accession number, OST number, and box number, where available. The second category consists of boxes located at the Osage Agency in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, ("Osage Agency"), that were marked as priorities for tranche one discovery by the Osage Nation during their review at the Osage Agency that began on February 23, 2005, and concluded on March 7, 2005. During that review, the Federal Government marked these boxes with temporary box numbers using a blue magic marker. These boxes are identified in Exhibit B according to those temporary box numbers. The third category consists of boxes that the Federal Government is planning to ship from the Osage Agency to the American Indian Records Repository in Lenexa, Kansas, and for which

Id. at ¶ 1(c). Id. at ¶ 1(d)-(e). 4 The Osage Nation has previously identified the documents in each box that should be imaged. In many cases, the designated documents are only a portion of the contents of the box. Thus, the total number documents designated for expedited imaging are far less than the contents of the 226 boxes identified in this notice.
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the Federal Government has not supplied any box numbers. The Osage Nation has identified these boxes in Exhibit C using the descriptions that the Federal Government provided to the Tribe during the February-March review conducted at the Osage Agency. According to the Federal Government, these descriptions are derived from the BIA Manual, Part 16, and correspond to the box identification system used by the National Archives and Records Administration. The Osage Nation is prepared to confer with the Federal Government at any time to clarify the identification of the boxes on the attached exhibits and/or the portions of those boxes for which images have been requested. In addition, the Osage Nation remains willing to coordinate and confer with the Federal Government to expedite this process further in any way possible. Dated this April 6, 2005 Respectfully submitted,

s/Wilson K. Pipestem WILSON K. PIPESTEM Pipestem Law Firm, P.C. 1333 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 Telephone: (202) 419-3526 Fax: (202) 659-4931 [email protected] Attorney for Plaintiff Osage Nation

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