## Facts

- Treaties between the United States and certain tribes, as previously interpreted by the Supreme Court, granted the Cherokee Nation title to portions of the Arkansas River riverbed in Oklahoma.
- The United States constructed and operated a navigation channel on the Arkansas River as part of a federal navigation project.
- The project damaged the Cherokee Nation’s mineral interests in the riverbed (including sand and gravel).
- After failing to obtain administrative compensation, the Cherokee Nation sued the United States, alleging a Fifth Amendment taking without just compensation.
- The United States asserted that any damage was caused by the federal navigational servitude exercised under the Commerce Clause and therefore was noncompensable.
- The district court granted summary judgment to the Cherokee Nation, concluding the relevant treaties did not reserve the navigational servitude.
- The Tenth Circuit affirmed on different grounds, holding the servitude existed but was insufficient to bar compensation after “balancing” public and private interests.

## Issues

1. Whether damage to tribal in-stream and riverbed mineral interests caused by a federal navigation project is a compensable taking under the Fifth Amendment when the government acts pursuant to its navigational servitude.
2. Whether courts may apply a public-private “balancing” test to determine if the navigational servitude bars compensation.
3. Whether treaties recognizing tribal riverbed title, or the federal trust relationship, eliminate or limit the federal navigational servitude absent clear abandonment.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court unanimously reversed and remanded.
- The Court held that no balancing test applies where interference with in-stream interests results from the government’s exercise of Commerce Clause authority over navigation.
- The Court ruled that proper exercise of the navigational servitude is not a taking of private property in the stream or underlying lands because affected interests are held subject to that servitude.
- The Court rejected the view that the treaties (as construed in prior riverbed-title litigation) made tribal title uniquely free of the navigational servitude.
- The Court held that the federal trust relationship did not convert the navigation project’s effects into a taking because the tribe’s property rights did not include freedom from the navigational servitude.

## Legal Principles

- The federal navigational servitude is a dominant attribute of the Commerce Clause power to regulate navigable waters for navigation.
- Property interests in navigable waters and their beds—including tribal riverbed title—are inherently subordinate to the navigational servitude unless the United States clearly and explicitly abandons that power.
- When the government acts within the navigational servitude and interferes with in-stream or submerged-land interests, resulting losses are not compensable under the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause.
- Courts should not apply a case-specific balancing of public and private interests to determine compensability when the interference is attributable to the navigational servitude.
- Federal fiduciary duties to tribes do not enlarge tribal property rights beyond limits imposed by the navigational servitude.

## Conclusion

The Court held that damage to the Cherokee Nation’s riverbed mineral interests caused by a federal navigation project was noncompensable because the tribe’s riverbed title, like other interests in navigable waters, remained subject to the federal navigational servitude, and no balancing test or trust-duty theory created takings liability.


United States v. Cherokee Nation of Okla., 480 U.S. 700 (1987)