## Facts

- Individual Indian Money (IIM) trust accounts hold funds derived largely from transactions involving allotted Indian lands.
- A federal statute requires the Secretary of the Interior to account for trust funds held for individual Indians, including daily and annual balances.
- In 1996, IIM beneficiaries filed a class action primarily seeking equitable relief requiring a trust accounting.
- Prior rulings in the litigation had established that the government owed, and had breached, enforceable fiduciary and statutory duties to provide an IIM accounting.
- The district court later found the Department of the Interior in continuing breach of its accounting duty but concluded that completing a historical accounting was “impossible” due to missing records, the scope of the task, and funding constraints.
- Based on that impossibility finding, the district court ordered monetary relief (restitution) as a substitute for a completed accounting.
- Both sides pursued interlocutory appeals: plaintiffs challenged the impossibility determination; the government challenged the continuing-breach finding and the monetary-relief remedy.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court correctly determined that Interior remained in breach of its statutory and fiduciary duty to provide an accounting for IIM trust funds.
2. Whether the district court erred by declaring an accounting legally “impossible” and awarding monetary relief in lieu of pursuing a feasible accounting consistent with statutory requirements and appropriations limits.

## Decision

- The court agreed in substantial part with the district court’s conclusions on the existence of a duty to account and Interior’s continuing breach of that duty.
- The court held the district court erred by relieving Interior of its obligation to produce an accounting based on a legal finding of “impossibility.”
- The court vacated the district court’s orders declaring the accounting impossible and awarding restitution as a substitute remedy.
- The court remanded for further proceedings to develop and supervise a feasible accounting approach.

## Legal Principles

- Statutory trust-accounting duties owed to IIM beneficiaries are enforceable in equity, and persistent administrative difficulty does not eliminate the duty.
- Practical and budgetary constraints may affect the scope and methods of an equitable accounting, but do not justify abandoning the accounting obligation outright.
- A court sitting in equity should pursue an accounting that reasonably uses available resources, including cost-effective methods such as statistical sampling or approximations where appropriate.
- Substituting broad monetary relief for an equitable accounting, without first attempting a workable accounting consistent with the statutory scheme and appropriations constraints, improperly converts the action into a damages-like remedy lacking the ordinary jurisdictional and procedural foundation.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit held that Interior’s obligation to provide an IIM trust accounting persisted despite the task’s difficulty and funding limits, vacated the district court’s “impossibility” and restitution orders, and remanded for implementation of a feasible, resource-constrained accounting before any substitute monetary remedy could be considered.


Cobell v. Salazar, 573 F.3d 808 (D.C. Cir. 2009)