What no court could award — what the Supreme Court explicitly declined to do, because it lacked the power to do so — was an order returning the Black Hills to the Sioux.

That kind of remedy required Congress to act.

Congress had the power to transfer land.

Congress had the power to restore treaty rights.

What Congress had not done, in the century since 1877, was choose to exercise those powers on behalf of the Sioux.

The 1980 decision confirmed that the taking had been legally cognizable — that the Sioux had been wronged in a way the law could recognize and for which the law could provide compensation.