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early transfer to the Court of Claims of any cases that clearly will not be finished in the alloted time, and (3) require the Commission to report to Congress twice each year. Final resolution of the respective bills had not occurred at the date of writing.

During the fiscal year hearings were also held by both Houses of Congress on the Commission's 1976 Appropriation, but no action had been taken by the end of the fiscal year.

STATUS OF THE WORK

Most of the 370 claims which have been filed with the Commission allege more than one cause of action. In order to process these causes it was necessary for the Commission to separate many of them and assign them separate docket numbers. As a result, 613 dockets had been established by the end of fiscal year 1975. As of that time 187 dockets had been finally dismissed, 251 had resulted in final money judgments totaling more than $533,981,000 and 175 remained to be completed.

(See Appendix 4.) The 175 pending dockets include 22 cases on appeal from the Commission's final determinations, and 2 others in which final determinations have been entered but not reported because of possible appeal.

The 87 published decisions entered by the Commission during the year include, in addition to final determinations, numerous interlocutory decisions on issues which must be resolved before these cases can

finally be completed.

These issues include land title or liability,

valuation, payments on the claim, and gratuitous offsets allowable under

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the Indian Claims Commission Act.

Decisions have been entered on one or

more of such issues in the remaining 175 dockets. Other necessary decisions may relate to such matters as: motions for summary judgment or partial summary judgment- particularly in accounting cases; procedural motions; questions remanded to the Commission by the Court of Claims; and attorneys' claims for compensation for services rendered and reimbursement of expenses of litigation.

In October of 1973 the Commission issued two landmark decisions containing definitive rulings on issues present in most of the pending accounting claims. Both of those decisions have been appealed to the Court of Claims. The Commission has no doubt that the losing party in each of these case will seek review of these decisions by the Supreme Court. The informed estimate of experienced counsel is that a decision by the Supreme Court granting or denying a writ of certiorari to the Court of Claims will not be issued until June or October of 1976.

Nine appeals from the Commission's decisions involving 12 dockets were filed in the Court of Claims during fiscal year 1975. At the end of the fiscal year these nine appeals, except for a portion of one that had been dismissed, were among those pending before the Court. During the same period two petitions were filed in the Supreme Court for writs of certiorari to the Court of Claims. Both of these petitions were denied, one after a period of three months and the other after a period of four

months.

In fiscal year 1975 the Court of Claims issued decisions on appeals

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In

from the Commission's decisions in 17 cases involving 72 dockets.
two cases involving three dockets the Court affirmed the Commission's
decisions in part and reversed them in part. In one case involving
two dockets the Court, on motion of the Indian appellees, dismissed a
In 14 cases involving 67
portion of the appeal relating to one docket.

dockets the Court affirmed the Commission's decisions.

In one of these

dockets, however, the Court ruled that an error of law had been committed by allowing intervention and instructed the Commission on remand to deny

the same.

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At the end of fiscal year 1975, sixty three dockets, constituting 36 percent of the 175 dockets then pending, were before the Court of Claims on appeal or involved in appeals from the Commission's decisions. This circumstance is a matter of concern to the Commission because there is always work to do after an appealed case is remanded to us. appeals from Commission decisions unavoidably delay completion of the cases. In fiscal year 1975 the Commission operated within a personnel ceiling of 44 positions and an appropriation of $1,324,000. year 1976 the maximum number of personnel remains 44; and a $1,411,000 appropriation is being considered by Congress. appropriation does not provide for the October 1975 government-wide salary increases, it appears that some supplemental funds will have to be requested. The Commission was fully staffed at the end of the fiscal

year.

For fiscal

Since this proposed

71-267 0-76-5

1/ This appendix includes the final awards and dismissals reflected by the Commission's records on the status of its dockets at the close of June 30, 1975. The 262 dockets shown as completed by awards include 11 dockets not then reported to the Congress as concluded. They are dockets numbered 73, 83, 151, 158, 197, 206, 208, 209 (see footnote 8 on page 6 of Appendix 2), 231, 341-A and 341-B. The 200 dockets shown as completed by dismissals include 13 dockets not reported to the Congress at June 30, 1975, as dismissed. They are dockets numbered 13-G, 18-F, 18-J, 18-K, 18-L, 18-M, 40-F, 73-B, 89, 140, 280, 341-C, and 341-D.

2/ The first Commissioners took their oaths of office on April 10, 1947.