THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON -- A St. Louis coal company asked a federal judge
Wednesday to
hold the country's largest American Indian tribe in contempt of
court for using
a company memo in a $600 million lawsuit.
A contempt ruling would help Peabody Coal Co. fight the Navajo
Nation's
lawsuit over a lucrative coal royalty plan, company lawyer Peter
Buscemi said.
The lawsuit in U.S. District Court accuses Peabody of using
secret contacts
with Interior Department officials to block the tribe's royalty
plan. The tribe
is asking for more than $600 million in damages.
A July 1985 memo between Peabody lawyers discusses the company's
efforts to
influence then-Interior Secretary Donald Hodel. The memo says
Peabody lawyers
"in large part" wrote the order Hodel gave that blocked
the royalty plan the
Navajos wanted.
The tribe obtained a copy of the memo during a separate lawsuit
over the
royalty issue against the federal government. Jacob Stein, a lawyer
for the
Navajos, acknowledged Wednesday that the tribe used that memo
in developing its
lawsuit against Peabody.
Buscemi said the memo was covered by a 1996 confidentiality
order in the
claims court case and should not have been used.
Although Buscemi said copies of the memo were under seal in
the claims
court, its full text is included in a December 1997 filing in
the case that is
public record.
Buscemi told Baskir that the Navajo Nation and a lawyer for
the tribe, Paul
Frye, should be held in contempt of court and barred from using
the memo for any
purpose, including in the U.S. District Court lawsuit.
"It is not up to litigants to decide whether to obey
orders of the court,"
Buscemi said.
Stein said the confidentiality order did not cover the memo.
The order was
meant to keep Peabody's financial information and trade secrets
confidential,
not documents such as the July 1985 memo, Stein said.
Baskir did not indicate when he would rule on the contempt
issue.
The memo discusses Peabody's decision to hire Stan Hulett,
a friend of
Hodel, to press Peabody's case with the Interior Department. Peabody
was trying
to get the department to block a Bureau of Indian Affairs ruling
that would have
given the Navajo Nation a 20 percent royalty on coal from its
reservation.
At the time, Peabody was paying the Navajos 37.5 cents per
ton for coal from
its two mines on the reservation in Arizona -- about a 2 percent
royalty. The
tribe, not knowing how or why the 20 percent royalty was blocked,
later agreed
to a 12.5 percent royalty.
Hodel ordered a subordinate to block the 20 percent royalty
ruling days
after meeting with Hulett and using language provided by Peabody,
the memo says.
The Navajo Nation's lawsuit says Hulett's intervention was
illegal and cost
the tribe millions of dollars. Peabody spokesman Vic Svec has
said the company
was merely lobbying the government and did nothing wrong.
Hodel has said he does not recall meeting with Hulett on the
Navajo royalty
case. The Salt Lake TribuneNATIONThursday, December 2, 1999 A15
© Copyright 1999, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found
on Utah OnLine is
copyrighted The Salt Lake Tribune and associated news services.
No material may
be reproduced or reused without explicit permission from The Salt
Lake Tribune.
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