A federal judge has appointed a mediator in the Navajo oil trust suit in an attempt to settle the long-running legal battle between Utah Navajos and the state.

In an order signed earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell appointed Judge William C. Canby Jr., a senior judge with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, to serve as mediator. In the order, Campbell instructed that the state will reimburse Canby up to $20,000 for his costs, including travel from Phoenix and reasonable out-of-pocket pre-diem expenses.

Utah Navajos sued the state over an estimated $150 million in oil and gas exploration trust that the state was ordered to manage by Congress in 1933. The Navajos are demanding an accounting of the funds and have been concerned the trust has been mismanaged.

The state has hired a team of forensic accountants to dig through decades' worth of documents to provide a limited accounting. Campbell has ruled the state must go back as far as the mid-1950s to account for transactions allotted from the trust.

— Geoffrey Fattah