Sarber v. Marland Oil Co.

1931 OK 66, 296 P. 473, 147 Okla. 257, 1931 Okla. LEXIS 764
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedMarch 3, 1931
Docket19434
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 1931 OK 66 (Sarber v. Marland Oil Co.) 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
Sarber v. Marland Oil Co., 1931 OK 66, 296 P. 473, 147 Okla. 257, 1931 Okla. LEXIS 764 (Okla. 1931).

Opinions

LEACH, C.

Yousta Sarber and Peter Sarber, minors, aged 15 and 13 years respectively, by their mother as next friend, commenced this action in the district court of Seminole county in the year .1927, against Forest Anderson, the Marland Oil Company, ahd others, to recover an undivided tw'othirds interest in certain lands located in that county, which lands were alleged to have been allotted to Billy Sarber, deceased, a full-blood Seminole Indian, father of plaintiffs, and to set aside guardian’s sale of the same and the deed issued thereunder, dated June 21, 1917, and to cancel other deeds and leases growing out of the guardian’s sale and deed.

Demurrers were filed by the defendants Forest Anderson and Marland Oil Company to plaintiffs’ amended petition, which demurrers were sustained, and plaintiffs’ action was dismissed, from which ruling the plaintiffs bring this appeal and allege error thereon.

The plaintiffs attacked the validity of the guardian’s sale and deed on several grounds. The first one presented in the brief of the plaintiffs is that:

“The appointment of guardian was void for the reason that there was insufficient service of the notice of hearing petition for appointment.”

It is alleged in plaintiffs’ amended petition. that:

“The only service of notice of hearing petition for appointment of Cookey Carbiteher, guardian, was the posting of notices in three public places in Seminole county, Okla.”

—together with other allegations showing the mother, who had the care and custody of the minors, to reside in Seminole county! The petition for the appointment of the guardian states in part:

“That the next of kin. and persons having tlie care of said minors, are Ina Sarber, mother.
“That petitioner is an uncle of said minors, and it is the request of the mother of said minors that this petitioner files this petition for his appointment as said guardian.”

The plaintiffs in support of their first proposition, rely upon the holding in case of Myers v. Harness, 116 Okla. 268, 244 Pac. 1109, wherein it was held that the *258 mother of a minor child having the care and custody thereof must have actual notice of application of a stranger to be appointed its guardian, and that posting of notices of such hearing is insufficient. Such authority would be decisive except for a later decision in the same case on second appeal, which later decision we consider controlling under the record in this case. The second or later decision in the ease, Harness v. Myers, 143 Okla. 147, 288 Pac. 285, in referring to a similar proposition as here raised, stated;

“The first time the question was before this court was in 1910, in the case of Crosbie v. Brewer, 08 Okla. 10, 158 Pac. 388. 173 Pac. 441. There it was said: ‘Plaintiffs next contend that section 0522, Revised Laws of 1910, requires -writ ten personal notice to be given to the relatives in the county. * * * In the case at bar the court caused three written notices to be posted up in three public places in the county, and plaintiffs argue that this was only constructive notice and was not the notice intended by the above statute. It seems it was the intention of the law to leave the nature of the notice to the discretion of the county judge, and the only notice required to be given was one deemed reasonable by the judge.’ * * * It therefore follows that, under the law of this state, in force at the time this guardian was appointed, the posting of notices in three public places, pursuant to order of the county judge, as was ,done in this case, was sufficient to give the court jurisdiction to make the appointment. The appointment Was therefore valid. * * *
“The record discloses that no noiice was served upon the step-father. The proceedings, however, were in compliance with the la)w as it existed at the time this guardian was appointed, and, since this is true, the rights accruing to the purchaser at guardian’s sale, and to subsequent purchasers, cannot be disturbed by reason of the fact that at a later date tire law was changed by judicial construction. In the case of Douglass v. Pike County, 101 U. S. 677, 25 L. Ed. 968, Mr. Chief Justice Waite, speaking for the Supreme Court of1 the United States, said:
“ ** * * The true rule is to give a change of judicial construction, in respect to a statute, the same effect in its operation on contracts and existing contract rights that would be given to a legislative amendment; that is to say, make it prospective, not retroactive. After a statute has been settled by judicial construction, the construction becomes, so far as contract rights acquired under it are concerned, as much a part of the statute as the text itself, and a change of decision is, to all intents and purposes, the same in its effect on contracts as an amendment of the law by means of legislative enactment.’ ”
“Contracts entered into in good faith, in relation to private property rights, in accordance with a statute as construed by the Supreme Court of the state, will be given effect according to the judicial construction of the statute in effect at the time the contract was entered into. A later construction of the statute by the same court, applying a different construction, will not affect the contract made pursuant to the former decision.” Bagby v. Martin, 118 Okla. 244, 247 Pac. 404.

Under the holding in the last two above cited cases, the first ground of invalidity of the guardian’s sale contended for by plaintiffs cannot be sustained.

It is next contended that the county court did not acquire jurisdiction to decree a sale of the lands because of insufficient notice of hearing on the petition to sell, that the allegations of the petition were insufficient to give the court jurisdiction, or to show' that the sale was necessary and' expedient, and the insufficiency was not supplied at the hearing; that the material allegations thereof were false, fraudulent, and did mislead the court.

The verified petition to sell real estate, a copy of which is attached to plaintiffs’ petition, alleges that the wards have no personal property; describes the land; alleges its approximate value to be $800, stated $50 to be the annual income therefrom; alleged that the wards would receive no rents from said land for some time because it had been leased and rents collected in advance by the allottee in his lifetime; stated the annual expense chargeable against the estate of said wards for their maintenance, education, and support; named the mother of the minors and their uncle, the petitioner, as the next of kin and persons' interested in the estate of the wards, and alleged that it was necessary and for the best interest of the wards to sell the lands for the following reasons:

“In order to obtain funds with which to properly support, maintain, and educate said W'ards, and it would be to the benefit and advantage of said W'ards to sell such lands for the purposes above stated, and to put out at interest or reinvest in more productive stock, or as the court might direct, any of the funds not necessary for the support, education, and maintenance of said W'ards. * S: *

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Related

Illinois Valley Trust Co. v. Sells
1933 OK 671 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1933)
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1931 OK 697 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1931)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1931 OK 66, 296 P. 473, 147 Okla. 257, 1931 Okla. LEXIS 764, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sarber-v-marland-oil-co-okla-1931.