Introduction

In North Dakota, a pipeline was still running across Native trust land—weeks, then months after its easement had expired.[1] The individual landowners whose land it crossed sued for trespass under federal common law.[2] The Eighth Circuit shut them down.[3] Not because the pipeline had a right to be there, but because these landowners had no federal cause of action to enforce their own property rights.[4]

The reason comes down to the source of those rights. The landowners hold interests created by federal allotment statutes,[5] the legislation that carved tribal lands into individual parcels during the allotment era.[6] That statutory origin places them outside the federal common law cause of action the Supreme Court recognized in County of Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation (“Oneida II”), which applies to tribal land rights grounded in aboriginal title, not individual allottees.[7] As a result, although federal law recognizes the landowners’ property interests,[8] it offers them no direct mechanism to enforce those interests in court. Instead, enforcement is left to the federal government, which may or may not choose to act.[9]

Although Chase v. Andeavor Logistics concerns a specific pipeline, the case reveals a much broader doctrinal gap in federal Indian land law.

The Doctrinal Background

Federal Indian law draws a fundamental distinction between two sources of Native American property rights. Tribal land rights are rooted in aboriginal title, a tribe’s recognized claim to land based on occupancy since time immemorial.[10] Individual trust land, in contrast, is largely a product of the allotment era when Congress divided tribal territories into individual parcels under statutes like the General Allotment Act (commonly known as the Dawes Act).[11] These allotments created property interests defined by federal statute, rather than historical occupancy.[12] The United States retains legal title while individual Native Americans hold equitable interests—the right to use and benefit from the land, but not legal ownership.[13]

That distinction determines who can sue. In Oneida II, the Supreme Court recognized a federal common law cause of action allowing tribes to vindicate their possessory rights in court.[14] That cause of action was grounded in the unique federal status of aboriginal title, the idea that tribal land rights predate and exist independent of any statute.[15] Individual allotment rights, arising from congressional legislation rather than historical occupancy, were never understood to carry the same enforcement mechanism.

Chase v. Andeavor Logistics

In January 2026, the Eighth Circuit decided Chase v. Andeavor Logistics, a dispute over a pipeline that continued operating across Native trust land after its easement expired.[16] The individual Native American allottees who owned the land sued the pipeline company for trespass under federal common law, arguing the company had no right to remain once the easement lapsed.[17]

The court rejected their claim.[18] The allottees’ property interests arose from federal allotment statutes, not from aboriginal title.[19] That distinction was dispositive: the federal common law cause of action recognized in Oneida II exists for tribes vindicating aboriginal title, not for individual allottees whose rights derive from legislation.[20] The court found additional support in the Indian Right-of-Way Act,[21], which authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to grant and regulate rights-of-way across trust land but provides no private right of action for individual landowners.[22] The United States holds legal title to trust land and serves as both trustee and easement regulator. Federal law, in other words, presumes the government will act on the landowners’ behalf.

The Gap

Chase exposes a structural problem. Individual Native landowners whose property is held in federal trust have no direct mechanism to enforce their own rights in court.[23] Unauthorized use of their land is not itself enough. Without a federal cause of action, there is nowhere to take the claim. Enforcement instead falls to the federal government.[24] As trustee, legal titleholder, and regulator of rights-of-way, the United States controls the litigation. When the government declines to act, delays enforcement, or pursues different strategic objectives, the landowners themselves have limited recourse.

This tension has a name in federal Indian law. The government owes fiduciary duties to individual Native American landowners.[25] In United States v. Mitchell, the Supreme Court held that statutes governing allotted land create an enforceable trust relationship, requiring the United States to manage those interests in the beneficiaries’ favor.[26] Yet that same government is the entity that decides whether to enforce the landowners’ rights at all.

The fiduciary and the gatekeeper are the same actor. This creates a mismatch within federal Indian law. Tribal land rights, particularly those grounded in aboriginal title, are supported by well-established federal remedies that allow tribes to vindicate their interests directly in court.[27] In contrast, individual allottees hold recognized property interests but cannot enforce them without federal intervention.[28] The difference is not about the legitimacy of their property interests—both are recognized under federal law—but about who is permitted to defend them.

What Now?

The implications of this enforcement gap extend beyond a single pipeline dispute. Energy infrastructure routinely crosses individually allotted trust land,[29] and as development pressures increase, so will disputes over expired easements, unauthorized use, and compensation. Under the current framework, individual landowners cannot address those disputes themselves.[30] They remain dependent on federal action to take up the problems, even when their own property interests are directly affected.

That is a consequential gap. Property rights traditionally include not just the right to possess land, but the right to exclude others and seek redress when that right is violated.[31] A property interest the owner cannot personally enforce is, in practice, a diminished one.

At a minimum, this doctrinal framework invites reconsideration. Courts could revisit the distinction between aboriginal title and statutory allotment rights to determine whether the Oneida II cause of action should extend to individual allottees. Congress could clarify enforcement mechanisms available to individual landowners or amend the Indian Right-of-Way Act to provide individual landowners a private right of action. Absent such changes, the gap between recognized rights and available remedies will persist.

If tribes can enforce their land rights directly in federal court, should individual Native landowners—whose interests are equally recognized by federal law—truly be left without the same protection? Until Congress or the courts confront that question directly, the gap Chase exposed will remain.

[1] Chase v. Andeavor Logistics, L.P., 165 F.4th 1102, 1110 (8th Cir. 2026).

[2] Id. at 1108, 1112.

[3] Id. at 1116, 1118.

[4] Id.

[5] Id. at 1116.

[6] Id. at 1113.

[7] Cnty. of Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation, 470 U.S. 226, 235 (1985) [hereinafter Oneida II].

[8] Chase, supra note 1, at 1116.

[9] Chase, supra note 1, at 1117.

[10] U.S. v. Santa Fe Pac. R.R. Co., 314 U.S. 339, 346 (1941); Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U.S. 1, 28 (1831).

[11] Dawes Act, ch. 119, 24 Stat. 388 (1887) (current version at 25 U.S.C. § 331 et seq.).

[12] See, e.g., Cnty. of Yakima v. Confederated Tribes & Bands of the Yakima Indian Nation, 502 U.S. 251, 254 (1992).

[13] Felix S. Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law § 18.04.

[14] Oneida II, supra note 7 at 234–35.

[15] Oneida Indian Nation v. Cnty. of Oneida, 414 U.S. 661, 668–69 (1974).

[16] Chase, supra note 1, at 1109.

[17] Chase, supra note 1, at 1112.

[18] Chase, supra note 1, at 1117–18.

[19] Chase, supra note 1, at 1114.

[20] Oneida II, supra note 7, at 235–36; Chase, supra note 1, at 1116.

[21] Chase, supra note 1, at 1118.

[22] 25 U.S.C. § 323.

[23] 25 U.S.C. § 323; Chase, supra note 1, at 1118.

[24] Chase, supra note 1, at 1116–18.

[25] U.S. v. Mitchell, 463 U.S. 206, 225–26 (1983).

[26] Id.

[27] See Oneida II, supra note 7, at 235–36.

[28] See Chase, supra note 1, at 1118.

[29] U.S. Dep’t of Energy & U.S. Dep’t of the Interior, Report to Congress: Indian Land Rights-of-Way Study (May 2007), https://www.energy.gov/oe/articles/epact-2005-indian-lands-rights-way (noting the role of pipelines and transmission infrastructure across tribal lands).

[30] Chase, supra note 1, at 1118.

[31] Kaiser Aetna v. U.S., 444 U.S. 164, 176 (1979).