Panel to hear plan to cap fees in $3.4B settlement

Lawmakers angry with attorneys requesting $223 million in fees for their role bringing about a $3.4 billion American Indian settlement are hearing a proposal to cap those fees.

Congress late last year approved the settlement that ended 15 years of litigation between Native American landowners and the federal government. The plaintiffs, led by Elouise Cobell of Browning, Mont., claimed the individual accounts of hundreds of thousands of Indians were mismanaged by the government for more than a century, costing them billions of dollars in royalties.

The House Subcommittee on Indians and Alaska Native Affairs was holding a hearing in Washington today on a bill by its Republican co-chairmen, Reps. Don Young of Alaska and Doc Hastings of Washington, to cap the attorney fees in the case at $50 million.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys agreed in the settlement not to request fees in excess of $99.9 million. But on Jan. 25, lead attorney Dennis Gingold filed a petition with the judge in the case saying that agreement doesn’t bind the judge from awarding more if he determines the amount is far below the standards in such a case.

“We have also provided the judge with information that would support a larger award. It is the judge’s call and we made that clear in our filings,” spokesman Bill McAllister said in an email response to The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Gingold and the plaintiffs’ attorneys said the $223 million plus $1.27 million in expenses is in accordance with controlling law.

The U.S. Department of Justice has called that amount “grossly excessive,” and said it would deplete the amount going to the Indian beneficiaries.