Tribes not entitled to fees

| Thursday, January 19, 2006

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SIOUX FALLS (AP) - American Indian tribes that sued to block a shooting range near Bear Butte at Sturgis are not entitled to an award of attorneys' fees, a federal appeals court ruled.

Decisions that ultimately doomed the project were unrelated to the merits of the tribes' lawsuit, and as such the tribes cannot be considered a "prevailing party," according to a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis.

"In these circumstances, it would be ironic, to say the least, if the tribes were awarded attorneys' fees against the defendant whose voluntary action triggered this result," the court said in upholding a judge's decision.

Sturgis and its Industrial Expansion Corp. had been promised $825,000 in federal Community Development Block Grant money channeled through the state to help pay for the $900,000 shooting range.

The project was challenged in court by tribes that said the sound of gunfire would disrupt Indian religious ceremonies at Bear Butte, a few miles away. A separate lawsuit challenged the use of CDBG money for the project.

After a review, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development told the state the shooting range failed to meet objectives of the grant program. The state then canceled the grant, and Sturgis, lacking the grant money, abandoned the project. Defendants then moved to dismiss the lawsuit as moot, and the tribe agreed except for the issue of attorneys' fees, which a federal judge denied last September.