PHOENIX - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the federal government can be sued for allowing tribal property to fall into disrepair.

By a 5-4 vote, the court said the government could be held responsible for the condition of land held in trust for Indian tribes, opening the way for the White Mountain Apache Tribe to seek $14 million in repairs to historic buildings used by the Interior Department.

But in a separate opinion, the court ruled that the Navajo Nation couldn't pursue a $600 million claim for lost coal royalties it sought for alleged collusion between the interior secretary and mining interests.

Officials from the White Mountain tribe in eastern Arizona said they were pleased with the ruling in their case but disappointed with the outcome in the Navajo case.

"It's a mixed message. It's always bittersweet," said Apache spokeswoman Chadeen Palmer. "We're disappointed for them because they also have a need."

The White Mountain tribe will now file a claim in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in an effort to force the government to repair the buildings at historic Fort Apache, some of which are now condemned.

"It was very much an uphill battle," Palmer said. "We were very hopeful, but so many people told us we didn't have a chance."

American Indian tribes and legal experts had been watching the Apache and Navajo cases carefully because the current court has not often sided with tribes.

"The fact that the only tribal win is 5-4 tells you that the tribes in general still have an uphill battle," Arizona State University law professor Robert Clinton said.

Unlike some previous courts, the current Supreme Court sees its role as one to expound on existing statutes, he said. "The court doesn't see its role as doing justice in individual cases."

Another law professor, Robert Anderson of the University of Washington, said he was pleasantly surprised by the outcome of the cases overall.

"This is as well as tribes have done recently, and these cases are very important to tribes with respect to assets," he said.

Though the White Mountain Apache decision was split, the court is forcing the federal government to fulfill the obligations of a trustee to care for tribal property, he said.

And Anderson noted that the footnotes in the Navajo ruling seem to narrow the decision to the Navajos' specific case, implying cases involving different minerals or more recent alleged breaches of duty might have different outcomes.

The Navajos "lost it in a way that does the least possible damage to Indian tribes generally," he said.

The court's 6-3 majority said the Navajos could not bring a claim under the federal mineral leasing law the tribe had sought to use in its dispute with the government over lost coal mining royalties.

The Navajos discovered after filing a lawsuit that then-Interior Secretary Donald Hodel met secretly in 1984 with a friend and lobbyist for the coal company with which the Navajos were negotiating.

After the meeting, Hodel blocked a decision that would have given the tribe 20 percent of coal proceeds mined on its land; the tribe eventually settled for 12.5 percent.

The court's minority said in their opinion that the tribe had "made a powerful showing" the secretary hurt its profits.

Louis Denetsosie, Navajo Nation attorney general-designate, said the tribe was still examining the ruling, but said it should not affect related cases against mining interests involved.

In the White Mountain case, the Bush administration had argued that it could not be sued for damages, but could be ordered by a court to make improvements.

Justice David Souter, writing for the majority, said that contention "would shield the government against the remedy whose very availability would deter it from wasting trust property."

The cases are United States v. White Mountain Apache Tribe, 01-1067 , and United States v. Navajo Nation, 01-1375.