Hackford v. United States Department of Interior

── Hackford v. United States Department of Interior ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Date: April 15, 2026 Category: General Appellate Case: 25-4054 Document: 7 Date Filed: 04/15/2026 Page: 1 FILED United States Court of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT April 15, 2026 _________________________________ Christopher M. Wolpert Clerk of Court RICHITA MARIE HACKFORD, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. No. 25-4054 (D.C. No. 2:24-CV-00700-DAO) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF (D. Utah) INTERIOR; MARK LEE GREENBLAT, Inspector General; DEB HAALAND, Secretary of the Interior; BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS; DARRYL LACOUNTE; THE BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT; TRACY STONE MANNING, Defendants - Appellees. _________________________________ ORDER AND JUDGMENT * _________________________________ Before CARSON, BALDOCK, and KELLY, Circuit Judges. _________________________________ Richita Hackford filed this pro se action seeking, in relevant part, to challenge her classification as a member of the Ute Indian Tribe. The district court dismissed the action under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) for failure to state a claim on which * After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.  Appellate Case: 25-4054 Document: 7 Date Filed: 04/15/2026 Page: 2 relief could be granted. Ms. Hackford now appeals. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm. I A) Statutory background This case involves what this court has previously described as “a hard-to-find federal statute sometimes known as the Ute Partition Act” (UPA). Hackford v. Utah, 827 F. App’x 808, 809 (10th Cir. 2020) (Hackford 2020). 1 The UPA was passed by Congress in 1954 to provide for the partition and distribution of the assets of the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in Utah between the mixed-blood and full-blood members thereof; [and] for the termination of Federal supervision over the trust, and restricted property, of the mixed-blood members . . . . 25 U.S.C. § 677. 2 “To achieve this goal, Congress directed the tribe to ‘submit to the Secretary [of the Interior] a proposed roll of the full-blood members of the tribe, and a proposed roll of the mixed-blood members of the tribe,’ after which the Secretary would publish those rolls in the Federal Register.” Hackford 2020, 827 F. App’x 1 As we noted in Hackford 2020, “[t]he UPA was previously codified in the United States Code,” but “Westlaw and Lexis now list” the applicable U.S. Code “sections as ‘Omitted.’” 827 F. App’x at 809 n.1. “The UPA’s full text remains in the Statutes at Large, however, so we will cite to . . . the previous U.S. Code codification.” Id. 2 Because the statute “specifically employ[ed] the terms ‘full-blood’ and ‘mixed-blood,’ we feel compelled, for pu