Patterson v. Carter

1921 OK 325, 200 P. 855, 83 Okla. 70, 1921 Okla. LEXIS 307
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedSeptember 13, 1921
Docket11363, 11364
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 1921 OK 325 (Patterson v. Carter) 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
Patterson v. Carter, 1921 OK 325, 200 P. 855, 83 Okla. 70, 1921 Okla. LEXIS 307 (Okla. 1921).

Opinion

PER CURIAM

The above-entitled eases were consolidated in the trial court, and were heard together in this court. The actions were commenced by the defendant in error, as plaintiff, against the plaintiffs in error, as defendants, for the recovery of specific real estate.

Before going into the merits of the cases it will be necessary to pass upon a motion to dismiss these appeals filed by the defendant in error, 'based upon the following ground, to wit:

“These cases having been tried in the court below on an agreed statement of facts, and these appeals having been prosecuted by a transcript of the record, the agreed statements of facts are not part of the record, and cannot be considered by this court, for the reason that the only errors assigned raise questions which require an examination of the evidence, and therefore these appeals should be dismissed.”

In support of this motion counsel cite Brown et al. v. Capital Townsite Co., 21 Okla. 586, 96 Pac. 587, and Howe v. Tiger, 76 Okla. 41, 183 Pac. 983.

The first of these cases was pending on writ of error in the Court of Appeals of the Indian Territory upon the advent of statehood, and was transferred to this court under the terms of the Enabling Act and the Schedule to the Constitution. In such actions the existing procedure, that is, the procedure in force in the Indian Territory prior to statehood, was preserved. St. L. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Cundieff, 171 Fed. 319, 96 C. C. A. 211; Loeb v. Loeb, 24 Okla. 384. 103 Pac. 570; M., K. & T. Ry. Co. v. Walker, 27 Okla. 849, 113 Pac. 907. As Brown v. Capital Townsite Co. was one of the very few eases governed by this procedure, the court very properly held that the agreed statement as to the facts was not a part of the record, because not made so by bill of exceptions, and declined to examine errors based thereon. School District v. School District, 64 Ark. 483, 43 S. W. 50. Under this procedure also the agreed statement of facts did not render a motion for a new trial unnecessary. Smith v. Hollis, 46 Ark. 17.

(1) But under the procedure in force in the territory of Oklahoma upon the advent of statehood, which was extended over and put in force in the state by the Schedule to the Constitution, the rule was entirely different. Under that pi'ocedure, which practically remains unchanged to the present day, the pleadings, the agreed statement -of facts, and the judgment are all parts of the record, and no motion for new trial is necessary for the Supreme Court to review the judgment of the trial court rendered upon such agreed statement. Board of Co. Com’rs v. Porter et al., 19 Okla. 173, 92 Pac. 152; Durant v. Nesbit et al., 59 Okla. 11, 157 Pac. 353 ; St. L. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Nelson, 40 Okla. 143, 136 Pac. 590.

Erom this it will be seen that, while Brown et al. v. Capital Townsite Co., supra, was correctly decided, it did not form a precedent for the subsequent ruling of the court in Howe v. Tiger, supra, which was governed by the practice and procedure act of Oklahoma Territory, extended over and put in force in thtf state by the Enabling Act and Schedule to the Constitution. Under that act, as we found it construed by the Supreme -Court of the territory of Oklahoma when we adopted it, the pleadings, the agreed statement of facts, and the judgment . are all parts of the record. As the ruling in the Tiger Case resulted from inadvertently -overlooking a ruling case in point and following a case which was not in point because it was based upon a different statute, we think it, and similar eases,' if there are any, should be overruled, in order that the seeming conflict in our decisions on this point may be harmonized. Eor this reason the motion to dismiss must be overruled.

The lands involved herein constitute the homestead and surpilus- allotmejntsj of one George Chatan, ' a mixed-blood member of the Choctaw Tribe of Indians. The lands were selected and the allotment m-ade during the lifetime of the allottee, who died intestate on or about the 4th day of March, .1906, leaving surviving him, *72 as Ms sole and only heir at law, Ales McCoy, a member of the Choctaw Tribe of Indians of five-eighths Indian blood. After the death of the allottee a guardian was appointed for Ales McCoy, who was then a minor, by the United States Court" for the Central District of Indian Territory sitting at Antlers, and thereafter the inherited lands involved in these actions were sold by the guardian at guardian’s sale under the order of the United 'States court, which sale was made according to the provisions of Mansfield’s Digest extended over and put in force in the Indian Territory by act of Congress governing guardian’s sales, the sale being conducted in said court and the guardian’s deed being issued during the year 11907. The plaintiffs in error in these two cases claim the lands involved by purchase from the purchaser at the guardian sales, and the defendant in error claims title by purchase from Alex McCoy and his wife on the 15th day of April, 1918, after McCoy had attained his majority. The trial court held that section 22 of the act of Congress of April 26, 1906 134 St. at D. 137), which was in force at the time of the guardian’s sale, provides the sole means whereby a minor of any degree of Indian blood may be divested of the title to his inherited lands, and that, inasmuch as there were no adult heirs with whom the minor heirs could join, the separate conveyance made by their guardian was void as to both the homestead and surplus allotments. This resulted in awarding the lands to the defendant in error, who de-raigned his title by conveyance from Alex McCoy after he had attained his majority.

(21 Prom this brief resume of the facts it is apparent that the question of law involved in this branch of the case is precisely the same as the question decided by this court in Burtschi et al. v. Wolfe et al., 82 Okla. 27, 198 Pac. 306. In that case a similar ruling of the trial court was held to be error in so far as it affected the guardian’s sale of the homestead allotment On the, authority of that case the ruling of the trial court in the case at bar is held to be erroneous in so far as it affected the guardian's sale of the homestead allotment. Section 15 and 16 of the treaty between the Chickasaws and Choctaws, ratified September 25, 1902, 32 Stats, at D. 641, provides:

“Lands allotted to members and freedmen shall not be affected or encumbered by any deed, debt, or obligation of any character contracted prior to the time at which said land may be alienated under this act, nor shall said lands be sold except as herein provided.
“All lands allotted to the members of said tribes, except such land as is set aside to each for a homestead as herein provided, shall be alienable after issuance of patent as follows: One-fourth in acreage in one year, one-fourth in acreage in three /ears, and the balance in five years; in each case from date of patent: Provided, that such land shall not be alienable by the allottee or his heirs at any time before the expiration of the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribal governments for less than its appraised value.”

And this court, in the case of Gannon v. Johnston, 40 Okla. 695, 140 Pac. 430, affirmed in Gannon v. Johnston, 243 U. S. 108, 37 Sup. Ct. 330, 61 L. Ed.

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Bluebook (online)
1921 OK 325, 200 P. 855, 83 Okla. 70, 1921 Okla. LEXIS 307, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/patterson-v-carter-okla-1921.