Nuwuvi : a southern Paiute history

Page 150

150 Nuwuvi: A Southern Paiute History was later combined with the Nuwuvi claim. However, in the final judgment the Chemehuevi were paid separately. The settlement of the case took almost twenty years, and it was not until 1965 that the Commission made its final judgment. The claims money was not actually distributed until 1971. The expert testimony, perhaps the most valuable part of the court proceedings besides the testimony of Nuwuvi representatives, is not yet available to the public, shrouding much of the case in mystery. The plaintiffs' expert witness normally testifies about such things as aboriginal boundaries of the country and generally tries to prove the plaintiffs' occupancy of a specific area. From the court proceedings that are available to the public, we can learn something about how the case proceeded. Two things seem to be notable about the case. First, the precise value of the land was not determined. A compromise settlement was arranged by the Nuwuvi lawyers in which the government agreed not to add up offsets (money or aid given to the Nuwuvi by the government) against the Nuwuvi, if the lawyer fixed a "reasonable" sum for the land. As Claims Commission records read: No findings on title were made by the Commission and no hearings were held with respect to issues of value or offsets, these having been the subject of the compromise settlement. ... It is further found that proof of the value of the area and the date of taking, had the case proceeded normally, would have taken considerable time and would have been rather expensive. The matter of offsets, oftimes a cause of delay, was eliminated by the compromise. It also appears that the attorneys and their clients were both benefited in different degrees by the early settlement of the cases. It is unfortunate that the Commission did not specify which of the two parties, the lawyers or the Nuwuvi, benefited most from the early settlement of the case. At any rate, in the final judgment the Nuwuvi were awarded $8,250,000 for 29,935,000 acres of land (this figure apparently being only an estimate, as the Commission states: "The overall acreage involved in all of these claims is approximately 29,935,000 acres, we are advised.") This adds up to about 27^ per acre. It should be noted that the boundaries of Nuwuvi territory were described only roughly; nor was the date of taking precisely determined. (Date of taking is determined for the Chemeheuvi as 1853