OVERVIEW

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is responsible for the administration and management of 55.7 million acres of land held in trust by the United States for American Indians, Indian tribes, and Alaska Natives. Developing forestland, leasing assets on these lands, directing agricultural programs, protecting water and land rights, developing and maintaining infrastructure and economic development are all part of the agency's responsibility. Currently, there are 562 federally recognized tribal governments in the United States.

CONCERNS

Negligent entrustment claims; also vicarious liability and increased tribal insurance premiums.

CURRENT STATUS

The BIA is now using the SAMBA Driver Record Monitoring service in North Dakota, South Dakota and New Mexico to ensure that only qualified drivers are driving agency-owned vehicles.

Lloyd Larson, a US Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) employee, had a history of drinking and failing to show up to work, but the BIA continued to allow Larson to drive an agency-owned vehicle without adequately reviewing his driving record. On January 25, 2002, Larson was driving in his government truck the wrong way on Highway I-40, after consuming several times the legal driving limit in alcohol. Tragically, he crashed head-on into a car and and killed four vacationers-Edward and Alice Ramaekers and Larry and Rita Beller. At trial, the federal court found the BIA management negligent for allowing Larson to drive the agency truck for not implementing adequate review procedures. At the time of the crash, Larson was on a pretrial diversion program for a DWI arrest two months before the fatal collision. He had a blood-alcohol level of more than 2 1/2 times the state's legal limit several hours after the crash. Larson is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for second-degree murder and has been ordered to pay $82,959 in restitution.

Safety officer Alfred Abeita, head of the BIA Safety Department in the Navajo Nation region where Larson worked, says the numerous arrests showed up in a records check done after the crash. During Abieta's court testimony, he testified that it was the BIA's policy for employees to show their driver's license to supervisors twice a year. Supervisors could also request that a driver's records be checked if they had reason to believe the worker had been arrested for drunken driving. Abeita had examined the driving records of 6,000 BIA employees, and was perplexed by the fact that no supervisor had ever requested a records check.

During the trial, witness testimony described the BIA as an agency rife with employees and lower managers who ignored the rules and drank and drove government cars with only intermittent interventions and reprimands by supervisors with alcohol issues of their own. "After the safety meetings we'd follow the rules for one or two weeks, then 'the habits' (would return)," said Tommy Moses, a former BIA worker. Moses was fired in September 2001 after driving drunk and crashing a government vehicle containing two other intoxicated employees and empty beer cans. Moses continued to drive a government vehicle after a previous DWI and driver's license revocation in May 2001. Moses testified that BIA workers drank on the job as often as twice a week. Supervisors, he said, "were a part of the road party." Randi McGinn, an attorney for the relatives of one of the two couples who died, said the BIA looked the other way when employees drank.

In 2003, the Beller family settled its lawsuit with the BIA for 2 million dollars. But the Ramaeker family chose to bring their wrongful death lawsuit to trial because they wanted to expose how the BIA has dealt with drivers like Larson-drivers they say should have never been allowed to drive BIA vehicles. The family claimed the BIA negligently allowed Lloyd Larson to drive a government vehicle despite having nine previous drunken driving arrests and five DWI convictions. Larson had never been fired and had not experienced any management consequences despite his nine DWI arrests. In May, 2004, the Raemaker family was awarded 2 million dollars after a public, high-profile court proceeding.

In the end, the Bureau of Indian Affairs was ordered to pay awards totaling 4 million dollars for being negligent. Senior BIA management was simply unaware of their employee's driving record. In response to this crash incident, SAMBA Driver Record Monitoring has been implemented by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for Northern New Mexico, in addition to North and South Dakota. The BIA is now ensuring a new standard of care for their agency. A monthly monitoring program is the critical first step in making a significant change in revamping the risk management processes currently used to review BIA drivers. The BIA management team now receives automated FleetWatch information reports every month, highlighting at-risk drivers and allowing the managers to take proactive, rather than reactive, measures and make personnel recommendations for past and current citations. In addition, a concise BIA Human Resource policy can define the actions managers must take based on the results of each report - before accidents occur. Using the SAMBA service ensures the additional protection needed against future negligent entrustment claims.