Public Law 726 - 79th Congress, to Create and Indian Claims Commission

by p.c.L. 3-7-47 6-AA [PUBLIC Law 726-79TH CONGRESS] [CHAPTER 959-2D SESSION] [H. R. 4497] AN ACT To create an Indian Claims Commission, to provide for the powers, duties, and functions thereof, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That there is hereby created and established an Indian Claims Commission, hereafter referred to as the Commission. # JURISDICTION Sec. 2. The Commission shall hear and determine the following claims against the United States on behalf of any Indian tribe, band, or other identifiable group of American Indians residing within the territorial limits of the United States or Alaska: (1) claims in law or equity arising under the Constitution, laws, treaties of the United States, and Executive orders of the President; (2) all other claims in law or equity, including those sounding in tort, with respect to which the claimant would have been entitled to sue in a court of the United States if the United States was subject to suit; (3) claims which would result if the treaties, contracts, and agreements between the claimant and the United States were revised on the ground of fraud, duress, unconscionable consideration, mutual or unilateral mistake, whether of law or fact, or any other ground cognizable by a court of equity; (4) claims arising from the taking by the United States, whether as the result of a treaty of cession or otherwise, of lands owned or occu- pied by the claimant without the payment for such lands of compen- sation agreed to by the claimant; and (5) claims based upon fair and honorable dealings that are not recognized by any existing rule of law or equity. No claim accruing after the date of the approval of this Act shall be considered by the Commission. All claims hereunder may be heard and determined by the Com- mission notwithstanding any statute of limitations or laches, but all other defenses shall be available to the United States. In determining the quantum of relief the Commission shall make appropriate deductions for all payments made by the United States on the claim, and for all other offsets, counterclaims, and demands that would be allowable in a suit brought in the Court of Claims under & section 145 of the Judicial Code (36 Stat. 1136; 28 U.S. C. sec. 250), as amended; the Commission may also inquire into and consider all RECORDS AMOUNT money or property given to or funds expended gratuitously for the U.S. SERVICE benefit of the claimant and if it finds that the nature of the claim and GOVERN the entire course of dealings and accounts between the United States and the claimant in good conscience warrants such action, may set off all or part of such expenditures against any award made to the claimant, except that it is hereby declared to be the policy of Congress that monies spent for the removal of the claimant from one place to