Kenny v. Miles
| Decision Date | 19 May 1919 |
| Docket Number | No. 179,179 |
| Citation | 63 L.Ed. 841,39 S.Ct. 417,250 U.S. 58 |
| Parties | KENNY v. MILES et al |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs.Solicitor General King, and Charles J. Kappler, of Washington, D. C., for petitioner.
Mr. H. P. White, of Pawhuska, Okl., for respondents.
In concluding a proceeding in the county court of Osage county, Oklahoma, for the settlement of the estate of Lah-tah-sah, a deceased Indian woman, it became necessary to determine who were her heirs. Two claimants appeared and sought to establish such a relation. One, John Kenny, claimed to be a son and the sole heir; and the other, Laban Miles, claimed to be the surviving husband and an equal heir with Kenny. It was conceded that Kenny was a son, but it was disputed that Miles ever was the deceased's husband. If he was such when she died, he and Kenny were equal heirs; otherwise Kenny was the sole heir.
At the hearing in that proceeding Miles produced and relied on a judgment in a partition suit, which he had brought against Kenny in the district court of the same county, wherein it was found that he and the deceased were married about a year before her death, and that he remained her husband until she died. Over Kenny's protest, based on congressional enactments presently to be noticed, the county court treated that judgment as a conclusive determination of the matters so found, and rejected evidence produced by Kenny to show that there had been no such marriage. It was accordingly adjudged that Miles and Kenny were equal heirs, and that decision was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the state. 162 Pac. 775. The case is here on writ of certiorari.
Whether, consistently with the congressional enactments on which Kenny's protest was based, the judgment in the partition suit could be treated as conclusive of the matters therein found is the ultimate federal question in the case.
Lah-tah-sah was an Indian of the Osage Tribe, duly enrolled as such. This entitled her to share in the division and allotment of the lands and funds of the tribe under the Act of June 28, 1906, c. 3572, 34 Stat. 539. She died intestate August 19, 1908. Thereafter two tribal deeds naming her as grantee,1 and approved by the Secretary of the Interior, were issued under that act. The deeds were for lands allotted to her or in her right out of the tribal lands. One was for 160 acres designated as a homestead, and the other was for 500.12 acres designated as surplus lands. Both purported to pass a title in fee simple, subject to the conditions, limitations, and provisions of the act. It was to these lands that the judgment in the partition suit related. That judgment treated the lands as inherited from Lah-tah-sah, and ordered that they be partitioned equally between Miles and Kenny as her heirs, or if not susceptible of partition in kind, that they be sold with a view to an equal division of the proceeds.
By section 6 of the Act of April 18, 1912, c. 83, 37 Stat. 86, which is supplementary to and amendatory of the Act of 1906, it is provided that—
'The lands of deceased Osage allottees, unless the heirs agree to partition the same, may be partitioned or sold upon proper order of any court of competent jurisdiction in accordance with the laws of the state of Oklahoma: Provided, that no partition or sale of the restricted lands of a deceased Osage allottee shall be valid until approved by the Secretary of the Interior.'
It was after this enactment that the partition suit was begun, and there was here no approval by the Secretary of the Interior.
Kenny's protest was based on the Acts of 1906 and 1912, and was to the effect that the lands to which the partition suit related were restricted lands, and that in consequence the judgment for their partition or sale was of no effect in the absence of the prescribed approval by the Secretary of the Interior.
The term 'restricted lands' in section 6 of the Act of 1912 means lands the alienation of which is subject to restrictions imposed by Congress to protect the Indians from their own incompetency. This is shown by a later sentence in the same section and by various provisions in the Act of 1906.
To determine whether the lands ordered to be partitioned or sold were restricted requires some consideration of the Act of 1906, for it was under that act that they were allotted and the tribal deeds issued. By its first section the act makes the tribal roll as existing January 1, 1906, with eliminations and additions not material here, the authentic roll of the members for the purposes of the act. By its second section it provides that the tribal lands, with stated exceptions, shall be divided among the members in such way as to give each a fair share in acres; that every member 'shown by the roll' shall be permitted to select three tracts of 160 acres each; that after all have made the three selections the remaining lands, with some exceptions, shall be divided as equally as practicable by a designated commission, and that—
The second section further provides (paragraph 7) that when any adult member is found fully competent to care for his own affairs the Secretary of the Interior may issue to him a certificate of competency, authorizing him to sell and convey any of the lands deeded to him under the act other than his homestead, which where the certificate issues3 is to remain inalienable for twenty-five years, or during the life of the homestead allottee. Other sections reserve to the tribe for twenty-five years the oil, gas, coal and other minerals in the allotted lands and provide that the tribal funds and moneys, with specified exceptions, shall be placed to the credit of the several members 'shown by the authorized roll' or their heirs, on the basis of a pro rata division and shall be held in trust by the United States for twenty-five years. The sixth section is as follows:
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Armstrong v. Letty
...will as such a conveyance would be void, because it is clearly in direct violation of the act of Congress. ¶35 In Kenny v. Miles, 250 U.S. 58, 63 L. Ed. 841, 39 S. Ct. 417, the Supreme Court of the United States, in construing a federal statute in reference to Osage Indian lands, held a jud......
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United States v. Mullendore
...protective authority over the shares of those heirs who do not have certificates of competency; and in Kenny v. Miles, 250 U. S. 58, 61, 63, 39 S. Ct. 417, 418, 63 L. Ed. 841, it was "The term `restricted lands' in section 6 of the Act of 1912 means lands the alienation of which is subject ......
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Harrison v. Moncravie
... ... court below has no power to enforce it, unless the partition ... or sale it directs is approved by the Secretary of the ... Interior. Kenny v. Miles, 250 U.S. 58, 39 Sup.Ct. 417, ... 63 L.Ed. 841, filed May 19, 1919. In support of this ... contention they cite Hayburn's Case, 2 Dall ... ...
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Armstrong v. Letty
...this will as such a conveyance would be void, because it is clearly in direct violation of the act of Congress. In Kenny v. Miles, 250 U.S. 58, 39 S.Ct. 417, 63 L.Ed. 841, the Supreme Court of the United States in construing federal statute in reference to Osage Indian lands held a judgment......