Grayson v. Harris

• Decision Date: 08 April 1929
• Docket Number: No. 116,116
• Citation: 49 S.Ct. 306,73 L.Ed. 700,279 U.S. 300
• Parties: GRAYSON et al. v. HARRIS et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

279 U.S. 300

49 S.Ct. 306

73 L.Ed. 700

GRAYSON et al.

v HARRIS et al.

No. 116.

Argued Jan. 10, 1929.

Decided April 8, 1929.

Messrs. Streeter B. Flynn and Robert M. Rainey, both of Oklahoma City, Okl., for petitioners.

Mr. Robert F. Blair, of Tulsa, Okl., for respondents.

Mr. Justice SANFORD delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case was before us at an earlier stage in Grayson v. Harris, 267 U. S. 352, 45 S. Ct. 317, 69 L. Ed. 652.

In August, 1917, the petitioners brought an action against the respondents in the district court of Creek county, Oklahoma, to recover an undivided half interest in certain lands in that county lying within the former Creek Nation in the Indian Territory. These lands had been allotted on July 9, 1906, in the names of two freedmen, Creek citizens, who had previously died; and the title to an undivided half interest in the lands had thereupon passed to Gertrude Grayson, a Creek citizen, who was an heir of each of the allotees. She died, intestate, and without issue, in April, 1907, leaving as her next of kin certain remote kindred who were Creeks, and a maternal grandmother who was not a Creek. On November 16, 1907, Oklahoma was admitted as a State.¹

The plaintiffs alleged that upon the death of Gertrude Grayson the undivided half interest in the lands of which she had died possessed vested in fee in them as her surviving Creek heirs; and that when the suit was brought they were entitled to the possession thereof but were being kept out of possession by the defendants who were then in possession under some claim of ownership. The defendants, answering, denied the plaintiffs' title and alleged that the title to Gertrude Grayson's half interest had upon her death descended to her grandmother, from whom the defendants derived title by mesne conveyances; that they and those through whom they claimed had been in adverse possession of the lands from the year 1906; and that the plaintiffs' cause of action was barred by the statute of limitations of seven years. The plaintiffs, replying, denied these allegations.

The case was tried by the court without a jury, which was waived. The court held that upon the death of Gertrude Grayson her undivided half interest had descended to her surviving Creek kindred under section 6 of the Supplemental Creek Agreement, ratified and confirmed by the Act of June 30, 1902, c. 1323; ² found that the evidence failed to show an adverse possession in the defendants and their predecessors prior to November 17, 1907, and that neither the defendants nor those under whom they claimed 'took any possession whatever of said land until some time in 1912'; and adjudged that-with certain exceptions not here material-the plaintiffs were the owners of the undivided half interest in suit.

On an appeal the Supreme Court of Oklahoma filed in 1922 an opinion to the effect that the plaintiffs' action was barred by the statute of limitations; but, later, on a petition for rehearing, in 1923 withdrew the original opinion and substituted another opinion holding, without reference to the statute of limitations, that under the Supplemental Creek Agreement the undivided half interest of Gertrude Grayson had been inherited by her maternal grandmother; and accordingly reversed the judgment of the trial court, with instructions to enter judgment quieting the title of the defendants. 90 Okl. 147, 216 P. 446.

On a writ of certiorari this Court, holding that under the Supplemental Creek Agreement the undivided half interest of Gertrude Grayson had been inherited by her Creek kindred and not by her grandmother, without passing on the question of the statute of limitations, which as we stated was not then open to our consideration, reversed the judgment of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, and remanded the cause for further proceedings not inconsistent with our opinion. Grayson v. Harris, 267 U. S. 352, 45 S. Ct. 317, 69 L. Ed. 652.

Thereafter the Supreme Court of Oklahoma readopted the withdrawn opinion of 1922 on the question of the statute of limitations, and ordered it filed as the opinion of the court, 129 Okl. 285, 264 P. 627; and holding, as therein set out that the plaintiffs' action was barred under section 4471 of Mansfield's Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas-which, as a part of chapter 97 relating to limitations, had been extended over and put in force in the Indian Territory by section 31 of the Act of May 2, 1890, c. 182³-again entered judgment reversing the judgment of the trial court and remanding the cause with instructions to confirm the defendants' title. 129 Okl. 281, 264 P. 623. And this final judgment has been brought here for review under a second writ of certiorari. 278 U. S. 555, 49 S. Ct. 7, 73 L. Ed. —.

Section 4471 of Mansfield's Digest, when extended over the Indian Territory by the Act of Congress became, in effect, with the settled construction placed upon it by the Arkansas courts, a law of the United States as though originally enacted by Congress. Joines v. Patterson, 274 U. S. 544, 549, 47 S. Ct. 706, 71 L. Ed. 1194. Therefore its construction and effect present federal questions that are to be determined by this Court in the exercise of its own independent judgment.

This section provides-subject to a saving clause in favor of minors, married women and persons non compos mentis-that: 'No person or persons, or their heirs, shall have, sue or maintain any action or suit, either in law or equity, for any lands, tenements or...