Sharon Aubol, et al. v. Andeavor Logistics, L.P., et al.

This Court has recognized that, where Indians hold a possessory interest in land that derives exclusively from federal law rather than from state law, federal common law supplies a cause of action in trespass permitting the Indian owners to protect that federal right of possession. In the decision below, the Eighth Circuit recognized the existence of this “federal common law trespass cause of action.” App.23a. But it understood this Court’s prior cases to be limited to trespass claims brought by tribes asserting aboriginal title, and thus concluded that the cause of action is not available to petitioners here— individual Indian allottees with possessory rights based on a federal statute. The upshot is that the allottees in this case have no way to vindicate their own property rights against an undisputed, decade-long, stillcontinuing trespass. That result contravenes this Court’s cases, decisions of the Ninth and Tenth Circuits, the considered position of the United States, and background principles of property law. The question presented is: Whether individual Indian allottees with a current right of possession conferred by federal law have a federal common-law cause of action for trespass on their allotments.