Green v. Menominee Tribe of Indians In Wisconsin

• Decision Date: 11 May 1914
• Docket Number: No. 285,285
• Citation: 58 L.Ed. 1093,34 S.Ct. 706,233 U.S. 558
• Parties: F. F. GREEN, Appt., v. MENOMINEE TRIBE OF INDIANS IN WISCONSIN and the United States
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

233 U.S. 558

34 S.Ct. 706

58 L.Ed. 1093

F. F. GREEN, Appt.,

v MENOMINEE TRIBE OF INDIANS IN WISCONSIN and the United States.

No. 285.

Argued March 13 and 16, 1914.

Decided May 11, 1914.

Messrs. L. T. Michener, P. G. Michener, and C. F. Dillett for appellant.

[Argument of Counsel from page 559 intentionally omitted] Assistant Attorney General Thompson for appellees.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 560-562 intentionally omitted] Mr. Chief Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

By this appeal a review is sought of a judgment of the court below holding that an amended petition filed by the appellant stated no cause of action, and dismissing the same. 47 Ct. Cl. 281. Our attention, therefore, must be directed to the petition; but as a means of at once clarifying the issues, we refer to the act of Congress authorizing the suit, and briefly state the averments of an original petition which was likewise dismissed because stating no cause of action.

By an act of Congress of May 29, 1908 (35 Stat. at L. 444, chap. 216, § 2), jurisdiction was conferred upon the court of claims 'to hear, determine, and render final judgment, nothwithstanding lapse of time or statute of limitation, for any balances found due, without interest, with the right of appeal, as in other cases,' upon the claims of eight named persons who were described in the act as 'traders,' against the 'Menominee tribe of Indians in Wisconsin, and against certain members of said tribe at the Green Bay Agency, for supplies, goods, wares, merchandise, tools, and live stock furnished certain members of the said tribe after the first day of January, in the year eighteen hundred and eighty, for the purpose of carrying on logging operations upon the Menominee Indian Reservation, in Wisconsin.' The statute further provided: 'Said court shall, in rendering judgment, ascertain and determine the amount, if any, due upon each of said claims, and if the court find that there is a liability upon any of said claims, it shall then determine if such liability be that of the said Menominee tribe of Indians as a tribe, or that of individual members of said tribe, and it shall render judgment for the amount, if any, found due from said tribe to any of said claimants, and it shall render judgment, for the amounts, if any, found due from any of the individual members of said tribe to any of said claimants.' The statute then provided the means by which the judgments, if any were rendered, whether against the tribe or against individual Indians, should be paid.

Green, the appellant, one of the traders named in the act, sought to recover from the Menominee tribe and 158 named members thereof an amount alleged to be the price of certain equipment and supplies alleged to have been furnished by him. The liability of the individual Indians was based upon averments that they had received during the years 1886 to 1889 the amount of the equipment and supplies sued for, and that they had contracted to pay for the same, the supplies having been furnished them to enable them to carry on logging operations on the Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin. The liability of the tribe was based on averments that it had expressly guaranteed that the individual Indians, members of the tribe, would pay for the supplies furnished them for the purposes and under the circumstances alleged. The defendants jointly demurred on two grounds: first, that the act conferring authority to bring suit was repugnant to the Constitution, and second, because the petition stated no cause of action. Holding that Congress had the undoubted power to pass the jurisdictional act, the court overruled the first ground. It also overruled the second ground as to the individual members of the tribe who were made defendants, but it sustained the exception of no cause of action as to the tribe, the court holding that 'under the averments of the petition the Menominee Tribe of Indians is but a naked guarantor for the debt of another, and such promise, not being in writing, is void under the statute of frauds.' The suit, as to the tribe, was therefore dismissed.

By leave, an amended petition was filed stating a new cause of action and joining the United States as defendant. This petition, after alleging that the petitioner was a citizen of the United States and a resident of Wisconsin, and after counting upon the jurisdictional act, made in substance the following averments: That in 1881 the Menominee Indians on the reservation were in a destitute condition, and, to save them and their families from starvation, the United States granted them permission to cut and sell the dead and down timber on the reservation, '10 per cent of the proceeds to go to the benefit of the said tribe and those performing labor in that respect.' That when it developed that the Indians, because of their extreme poverty and want of credit, could not procure the equipment and supplies which were essential to enable them to make use of the permission, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs sent a special agent, John A. Wright, to the Reservation, to make some arrangement whereby such condition could be remedied. That a council of the tribe was thereupon held, attended by all the chiefs and head men and practically all the members of the tribe, and it was agreed by and between the then Indian trader, M. Wescott, 'as one party to the agreement, and the Menominee Indian Tribe as the other party thereto, that the said M. Wescott, the duly licensed Indian trader, at Keshena, Wisconsin, should furnish necessary equipment and supplies to those members of the tribe who desired to engage in logging operations to enable them to carry on such work, and support their respective families while so engaged, such equipment and supplies not to exceed the sum of $2.50 for each thousand feet of logs so cut and sold; that all logs cut and hauled by the Menominee Tribe in the logging operations were to be sold through the Indian agent, to the highest and best bidder; and that the prices for such supplies as were to be furnished by the petitioner should be such prices as were being paid in cash for similar supplies in that part of the state, with transportation added; that said Menominee Tribe promised and agreed that such equipment and supplies so furnished should be paid for out of the first proceeds from the sale of the logs so to be cut and sold. That said agreement was made with the consent and approval of the Indian agent residing at Keshena, Wisconsin, and in charge of said Menominee Indian Reservation, and also by the said special agent, John A. Wright. That said agreement had the unanimous approval of all members of the tribe present at said council. That said agreement was made orally by the said M. Wescott, personally, and by the chiefs and head men on behalf of said tribe. . . .' It was alleged that the agreement thus made was carried out by the tribe and by Wescott, who made advances for the purposes of the operations in cutting the dead and down timber, and continued to do so until the year 1886, when Wescott ceased to be the Indian trader and was succeeded by Green, the petitioner, and one Stacy, whose rights the petitioner Green had acquired. The petition then charged that, as the condition...