People ex rel. Cayuga Nation of Indians v. Commissioners of Land Office

• Decision Date: 31 December 1912
• Citation: 100 N.E. 735,207 N.Y. 42
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. CAYUGA NATION OF INDIANS et al. v. COMMISSIONERS OF LAND OFFICE.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

207 N.Y. 42

100 N.E. 735

PEOPLE ex rel. CAYUGA NATION OF INDIANS et al.

v.COMMISSIONERS OF LAND OFFICE.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Dec. 31, 1912.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department.

Mandamus by the People, on the relation of the Cayuga Nation of Indians, etc., and others, against the Commissioners of the Land Office. From a judgment of the Appellate Division, Third Department (152 App. Div. 543,137 N. Y. Supp. 393), reversing an order of the Special Term (74 Misc. Rep. 154,131 N. Y. Supp. 937) and granting the writ, the commissioners appeal. Affirmed.

Thomas Carmody, Atty. Gen. (Wilber W. Chambers, of New York City, of counsel), for appellants.

Charles Van Voorhis, of Rochester, for respondents.

GRAY, J.

This application was made in behalf of the Cayuga Nation of Indians, resident in this state, for a peremptory writ of mandamus, which should require the commissioners of the land office ‘at once to take steps towards a settlement of the claim of the Cayuga Nation of Indians, resident in the state of New York,’ under the provisions of chapter 255 of the Laws of 1909. The writ was refused at the Special Term of the Supreme Court; but on appeal to the Appellate Division, in the Third Judicial Department, that court reversed the order below and granted the application.

[1][2] Chapter 255 of the Laws of 1909 presents the question upon this appeal whether its provisions are mandatory, as is the contention in behalf of the Cayuga Nation of Indians; or whether, as the appellants argue, those provisions were such as to invest them with discretionary powers, and therefore were directory merely. The following are the provisions of the act: ‘Section 1. The commissioners of the land office are hereby empowered to adjust the claim embodied in the memorial of the Cayuga Nation of Indians, resident in the state of New York, bearing date February 27th, 1906, and presented to said commissioners, by entering into an agreement with said Cayuga Nation of Indians, resident in the state of New York, for the settlement of the said claim, on a basis not exceeding the sum of $247,609.33, including interest on such sum from the day of the presentation of said memorial * * * to the day of settlement . The amount of such settlement shall be retained in the treasury of the state, in trust for the said Cayuga Nation, and annual interest only on such sum at the rate of five per centum per annum shall be paid by the state to said Cayuga Nation, except that such principal sum may be chargeable with the expense of said Cayuga Nation in the making, prosecution and settlement of said claim. Such settlement shall be subject to the approval of the Governor of this state.’ The second section of the act provides that, ‘if settlement of the claim shall be reached,’ the commissioners were to investigate and report to the Legislature whether a lease, or purchase, could be procured from the Seneca Nation of Indians of adequate lands for the use and occupation of the Cayuga Nation by the use of sufficient of the principal sum aforesaid.

This application was made in 1911, after the then commissioners of the land office had refused to entertain the claim of the Cayuga Nation upon the two grounds-that there was no legal basis for it, and that there was nothing from which to determine that the Indians had suffered any damage. This conclusion of the commissioners, it will be observed, is equivalent to a judicial expression of opinion, as upon a consideration of the merits of the claim, which was not the sort of action the statute required of them. It would seem to be clear from the language of the enactment that no power was conferred to pass upon the legal liability of the state, and that the Legislature intended that the commissioners of the land office should act in the matter by entering into an agreement for the payment of some sum to the Indians. The commissioners were ‘to adjust the claim * * * by entering into an agreement for the settlement of the said claim on a basis not exceeding the sum of $247,609.33,’ and ‘the amount of such settlement shall be retained in the treasury of the state in trust’ for the payment to the nation of interest thereon, at the rate of 5 per cent. This language indicates a legislative admission of the claim of the Cayuga Nation and the intent that the commissioners of the land office should settle it by agreeing upon some amount.

If we consider the enactment of the Legislature in the light of the historical facts relating to this claim, I think that the mandatory character of the statute becomes unquestionable.The memorial to which the statute refers was filed by the Cayuga Nation in 1906, and it presented a claim upon a transaction had with the state in the year 1795. After the conclusion of the Revolutionary War and the making of treaties of peace with the Indians by the United States and by the state of New York, under an act of the Legislature of the state, passed in 1795, a commission was appointed to make such arrangements with certain tribes, of which the Cayuga Nation was one, ‘relative to the lands appropriated to their use, as may tend to promote the interests of the said Indians and to preserve in them confidence in the justice of the state,’ etc. The commission was empowered to purchase from them the residue of such lands as were not in individual occupancy, by the payment of annuities; provided such annuities should ‘not exceed six per cent. on the principal sum, which would arise from the sale of such residue at four shillings per acre.’ The act further provided that the Surveyor General should resell such lands at public auction at not less than 16 shillings per acre. All the lands of the Cayuga Indians were thus acquired by the state at 4 shillings per acre, and shortly thereafter were resold at 16 shillings per acre; realizing to the state, above what it had paid to the Indians, the sum of $247,609.33. In 1853, the Cayuga Nation of Indians first presented a memorial to the Legislature, claiming, in substance, that the profit which the state had made out of its transaction with the Indians, who were its wards, should be appropriated for their benefit. From time to time thereafter, a similar claim was presented to the Legislature, and always without success, until the passage of the act of 1909, now in question. The proceedings, which followed upon the filing of the present memorial in 1906, and which resulted in that act, should be noted. After the filing with the commissioners of the land office, they were advised that they were without jurisdiction to entertain the memorial, and, in consequence, an act was passed by the Legislature upon the subject in 1907. Laws 1907, c. 492. By that act the commissioners were...