Lake Pepin and the Federal Circuit: Brief Filed and What the Damages Claim Describes

On September 28, 2026, counsel filed the Principal Brief of Appellants in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in the Lake Pepin Reservation litigation supported by Five Stones Legal Defense Fund. The case is Federal Circuit No. 26-2082 (Doc. 12). It is an appeal from Court of Federal Claims No. 25-1718. Filing counsel confirmed the brief is on the docket.

Five Stones lists Lake Pepin as an active project. The public project page at https://www.isuegov.com/lake-pepin already states the core dispute: the lawsuit argues that the United States violated trust obligations to the Sioux Half-Breed lineal descendants of the Lake Pepin Reservation, which the page says was established by the 1830 Treaty of Prairie du Chien and by the 1854 and 1858 Congressional Acts.

The same page states a present-day fact: the United States does not recognize the Sioux Half-Breed lineal descendants as Indians, and does not recognize the Lake Pepin reservation or its boundaries. The project asks for a different treatment of those descendants under federal trust and Indian-title principles.

What the public case page already says the fight is about

Creation of a trust. The project page says the 1830 treaty and the 1854 and 1858 Acts created the Lake Pepin Reservation for the Sioux Half-Breeds and established a trust relationship between the United States and the reservation's beneficiaries. The government took control of the lands and assumed the role of trustee.

No abrogation. On that account, the 1854 and 1858 Acts did not abrogate, terminate, or repudiate the 1830 treaty or the trust in the reservation lands.

Breach of trust. The government, the page alleges, failed to manage the reservation lands and their proceeds as a trustee should. Instead of holding land-sale proceeds in trust for the lineal descendants, the United States improperly retained those proceeds.

Indian title. A central claim on the project page is that the United States failed to honor continuing Indian title in the Lake Pepin reservation lands when it sold the land and kept the money.

What the filed brief alleges about damages

The filed Principal Brief of Appellants includes a section headed: "The United States Continues to Profit From the Sale and Retention of the Trust Corpus in the Billions."

In plain English, the brief alleges that the United States pocketed Lake Pepin Reservation sale proceeds instead of holding them in trust for the 1830 Treaty beneficiaries. According to the brief's account, about 212,567.5 acres — roughly two-thirds of the reservation corpus — were sold or transferred as public domain at $1.25 per acre. That yields up to about $265,709 in historical sale proceeds that, the brief alleges, were not placed in a beneficiary trust.

The brief then sets out compounded modern Treasury cash-value illustrations over 156 years (1870 to 2026). Those figures exclude further rents, timber, minerals, and similar proceeds. They are illustrations of compounded cash value as the brief describes them — not a court finding and not a promised recovery.

Compounded cash-value illustrations in the brief (excluding further rents/timber/minerals):

• 4% fiduciary surcharge: about $120,672,190

• 5%: about $536,953,800

• 6% historical: about $2,355,706,860

The brief seeks monetary damages, an accounting, and a cash surcharge against the U.S. Treasury. It does not seek ejectment. It does not ask the court to invalidate private land patents or otherwise upset private land titles. The fight, as framed on appeal, is about money and accounting for alleged trust breaches — not taking land from private owners.

Relief sought on appeal, as the brief frames it in Doc. 12, is straightforward: reverse the Court of Federal Claims dismissal and remand for proceedings on the merits, including class certification, liability, and — only after liability — a quantum accounting. (The live project page still describes Lake Pepin as Active / pleadings; this post does not treat a CFC dismissal as an on-site public status update.)

Why a Federal Circuit path matters here

In August 2026, Five Stones hosted a public Lake Pepin case-status update with attorney Erick Kaardal. Event materials are at https://www.isuegov.com/event-details/new-erick-kaardal-and-five-stones-present-the-lake-pepin-reservation-litigation-case-status-updates-1. Those materials said the legal team had finalized strategy for an appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The September 28 principal brief is the next public milestone after that announced path.

Federal Indian law often turns on whether the United States keeps promises written into treaties and statutes. Lake Pepin's public theory is specific: a treaty-era reservation, a trust, land sold, proceeds kept, recognition withheld. If those facts are proven in court, the dispute is not only about one lake. It is about whether trust and Indian-title rules still have force when the government later treats a people and a reservation as if they never counted.

The project page also notes that trust-mismanagement suits against the United States — including lines of authority associated with United States v. Mitchell and Cobell v. Salazar — show that fiduciary duties to Native peoples can be enforced. This post does not claim Lake Pepin has won that fight. It says the public case theory sits in that tradition of accountability — and that the filed brief now puts a detailed damages account before the Federal Circuit.

What this post is not

This is not a guarantee of outcome, a settlement pitch, or an invest offer. The figures above are what the appellants' brief alleges and illustrates. Courts decide liability and quantum — if they reach those questions. Five Stones Legal Defense Fund is a 501(c)(3) public charity. It is not a law firm. Gifts may be designated to a specific project fund or to Five Stones as a whole. A gift is still a gift to the Fund, not a stake in a case and not a claim on any recovery.

How to follow the project

Read the public Lake Pepin project page: https://www.isuegov.com/lake-pepin

Support Five Stones' work: https://www.isuegov.com/donate (designation allowed; not a stake in a case)

Start at https://isuegov.com