Merchants' & Planters' Nat. Bank v. Ford

1923 OK 1044, 220 P. 833, 93 Okla. 289, 1923 Okla. LEXIS 424
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedNovember 27, 1923
Docket14338
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 1923 OK 1044 (Merchants' & Planters' Nat. Bank v. Ford) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Merchants' & Planters' Nat. Bank v. Ford, 1923 OK 1044, 220 P. 833, 93 Okla. 289, 1923 Okla. LEXIS 424 (Okla. 1923).

Opinion

Opinion by

THOMPSON, C.

This action was begun in the district court of Pontotoc eounty, Okla., by R. P. Ford, defendant in error, as plaintiff below, to enjoin the sheriff of Pontotoc county, Okla., from selling ,a one-fifth interest in inherited lands, described in his petition, under and by virtue of an execution issued out of the district court of Pon-totoc county, Okla., to satisfy a judgment in the district court of Pontotoc county, Okla., against Jimpson Carney, a full-blood Chickasaw Indian, his grantor, for the sum of $2,637 in favor of the Merchants’ & Planters’ National Bank of Ada, Okla., one of the plaintiffs in error, a defendant below.

Parties will be referred to as plaintiff and defendants, as they appeared in the lower court.

Plaintiff alleges that he bought the interest of Jimpson Carney, on the 27th day of July, 1922, in the lands involved in this case;, and his deed thereto was duly approved by the county court of Pontotoc county, Okla., that Jimpson Carney, his grantor and judgment debtor of defendant, is a full-blood Chickasaw Indian; that he inherited a one-fifth interest in the lands from his full-blood Chickasaw mother, Lottie Carney, who died in April, 1922, and that said land was allotted to his mother, Lottie Carney, as an enrolled full-blood Chickasaw Indian.

The defendants answered the petition for injunction, not denying that Jimpson Carney was a full-blood Indian heir of Lottie Carney, deceased, but alleging that the Secretary of the Interior, on the 12th day of October, 3936, removed the restrictions on the alienation on all of Jimpson Carney’s land, and that defendant had obtained judgment against Jimpson Carney for $2,637, on September 19, 1921, which judgment was sought to be collected by execution and sale of the interest of Jimpson Carney in the lands inherited from his mother and that said judgment was a good, valid, and subsisting lien upon this real estate at the time the same was purchased by the plaintiff and was subject to execution and sale for the satisfaction of the judgment debt.

The order of the Secretary of the Interior, removing the restrictions, Is as follows:

•‘Office of Indian Affairs' Received Sept. 13, 1916, 5 Civ. Tribes. '
“Enclosure to Dept. No. 6790.
“Order for Removal of Restrictions
“Department of the Interior.
“IBM
“Washington, D. C. Oct. 12, 1916.
“Number 13491.
“Roll Number 420 full blood,
“Whereas, Jimpson Carney a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, was allotted certain land, which land is restricted against alienation.
“Now therefore, J, under the authority vested in me by the act of Congress approved May 28, 1908 (35 Stat. L. 312), and the regulations of the Department prescribed thereunder, hereby remove, without conditions concerning terms of sale and disposal of proceeds, the restrictions on alienation of all the restricted lands of said Indian al-lottee, such removal of restrictions to be effective thirty days from date hereof.
“Alexander T. Vogelsling
“Acting Secretary of the Interior,
“Jimpson Carney is 29 years old and is enrolled as a full-blood Chickasaw Roll No. 420..Dated Aug. 21st, 1916, J. C. W.”

The plaintiff demurred to the answer of defendants on the ground that the answer does not state facts sufficient in law to constitute a defense to the petition in injunction filed herein, which demurrer was by the court sustained, and defendants reserved exception and elected to stand upon their answer, and the cause comes regularly upon appeal to this court from the judgment of the trial court sustaining the demurrer and granting the relief prayed for in the petition.

The sole and only question to be decided here is a question of law whether the judgment debt obtained by the defendant Merchants’ & Planters National Bank of Ada, Okla., on the 19th day of September, 1921, was a lien upon the one-fifth interest inherited by *291 plaintiff’s grantor, Jimpson Carney, a full* blood Chickasaw Indian, of the allotment of his fnll-blood deceased mother, and could the same be levied upon and sold for the satisfaction of said judgment debt, after the same had been conveyed by deed to the plaintiff herein, on the 27th day of July, 1922, which deed had been duly approved by the county court of Pontotoc county, Okla., the court having jurisdiction over the estate of the deceased allottee.

It is our opinion that this one-fifth interest of this full-blood heir in the allotment of his deceased full-blood mother could not be taken and sold for the satisfaction of a debt, notwithstanding that the Secretary of the Interior, on the 12th day of October, 1916, had issued his order, removing restrictions, “without conditions concerning terms of sale and disposal of proceeds on alienation of all the restricted lands of said Indian allottee.” We do not think that this removal of restrictions applied to lands involved in this action for the reason that the said order of removal recites:

“Whereas, Jimpson Carney,’ a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, was allotted certain lands, which land is restricted against alienation.”

And we, therefore, conclude from the language of the order itself that it only referred to the certain lands allotted to Jimpson Carney, and we do not think it applied for the further reason that this land could not have been in the contemplation or under consideration by the Secretary of the Interior on the 12th day of October, 1916, when it is shown by the record that he became an heir to this one-fifth interest upon the death of his mother, which occurred in April, 1922.

There is. another and stronger reason why we are of the opinion that this land could not be taken and sold at forced sale under execution to satisfy judgment, for the reason that the act of Congress of April 26, 1906, provided:

“All conveyances made under this provision by heirs, who are full-blood Indians, are to be subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe”

—which act was amended by the act of Congress of May 27, 1908, in the following language :

“Provided, that no conveyance of any interest of. any full-blood Indian heir in such lands shall be valid unless approved by the court having jurisdiction of the settlement of the estate of the said deceased allottee”

—thereby substituting the “court” for the “Secretary of the Interior,” as the authority to approve such conveyances.

This court, in the case of Hope v. Foley, 57 Okla. 513, 157 Pac. 727, held:

“After the act of May 27, 1908, became effective, the Secretary of the Interior had no authority to approve conveyances of full-blood inherited Indian lands.”

This court, in the case of Marcy v. Board of Commissioners, 45 Okla. 1, 144 Pac. 611, held that:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1923 OK 1044, 220 P. 833, 93 Okla. 289, 1923 Okla. LEXIS 424, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/merchants-planters-nat-bank-v-ford-okla-1923.