Rider v. La Clair

• Decision Date: 23 January 1914
• Citation: 77 Wash. 488,138 P. 3
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: RIDER v. LA CLAIR.

138 P. 3

77 Wash. 488

RIDER v. LA CLAIR.

Supreme Court of Washington

January 23, 1914

Department 1. Appeal from Superior Court, Yakima County; E. B. Preble Judge.

Action by J. W. Rider against John La Clair. Judgment for defendant and plaintiff appeals. Remanded, with directions.

Holden & Shumate, of North Yakima, for appellant.

H. A La Berge, of North Yakima, for respondent.

CHADWICK J.

Plaintiff sets up six separate causes of action, all of which involve the validity of contracts made by a Yakima Indian who lives in the Yakima Indian reservation on patented allotted land. The land is patented under certain restrictions, and is held in trust by the government. The Indian defendant has not severed his tribal relations.

In the first cause of action plaintiff seeks to foreclose a chattel mortgage on certain cattle which were given to defendant for his use and subsistence by the United States government between one and two years prior to the execution of the mortgage, during all of which time the cattle were in possession of defendant on his allotment. The manner in which he had acquired the cattle was unknown to plaintiff. The United States did not consent to the mortgage. The court held that the United States was a necessary party to the contract, that the mortgage was void, and a foreclosure was denied. The ruling of the court is based upon the following statute: 'The agent of each tribe of Indians, lawfully residing in the Indian country, is authorized to sell for the benefit of such Indians any cattle, horses, or other live stock belonging to the Indians, and not required for their use and subsistence, under such regulations as shall be established by the Secretary of the Interior. * * * That where Indians are in possession or control of cattle or their increase which have been purchased by the government such cattle shall not be sold to any person not a member of the tribe to which the owners of the cattle belong or to any citizen of the United States whether intermarried with the Indians or not except with the consent in writing of the agent of the tribe to which the owner or possessor of the cattle belongs. And all sales made in violation of this provision shall be void and the offending purchaser on conviction thereof shall be fined not less than five hundred dollars and imprisoned not less than six months.' 3 F. Stat. Ann. § 2127.

Appellant contends that this statute prohibits sales, but not mortgages or other pledges. That a mortgage is not a sale, but only a lien, has been declared by many, if not a majority, of all the courts; but it seems to us that it can make no difference whether it is a sale or a lien within the statute. It has been so often declared by statute as well as by judicial decisions that an Indian is not sui juris; that, because of his inaptitude and congenital lack of an understanding of values, he should, so long as he maintains his tribal relations, be considered a ward of the government; that we find ready application of one of the first principles of statutory construction, that is, a consideration of the old law, the mischief and the remedy. From the time of Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515, 582, 8 L.Ed. 483, down to United States v. Celestine, 215 U.S. 278, 30 S.Ct. 93, 54 L.Ed. 195, it has been the rule of all courts to construe doubtful legislation in favor of the Indian. When so considered, we have no hesitation in holding that a mortgage made by an Indian on cattle held in virtue of the statute is void when made without the sanction of the agent having supervision of the affairs of his tribe. The point is made that the statute is limited in its application to cattle in the possession of the Indian at the time of the passage of the act, because the act is not general, but was included in a bill appropriating money for the Indian department for the fiscal year 1884. Were this a state statute, there might be some merit in this contention; but it is well known that many of the general laws passed by Congress are tacked onto appropriation bills and to the sundry civil bill, there being no constitutional limitation to hamper Congress in this respect. We think, too, that the act is broad enough to cover the increase of such cattle as the government may furnish.

The fourth cause of action raises the question whether an Indian can mortgage personal property purchased with the proceeds of the sale of the allotment of an incompetent Indian.

We adopt the words of the trial judge: 'I think that upon the sale of an allotment of an incompetent Indian, in pursuance of Act Cong. June 25, 1910, c. 431, § 1, 36 Stat. 855; F. Stat. Ann. Supp. 1912, p. 96, or Act March 1, 1907, c. 2285, 34 Stat. 1018, F. Stat. Supp. 1909, p. 228, the purchase price received by the United States has the same legal status as the allotment itself had, and therefore is not subject to alienation by the Indian, and that property purchased (like that in question) by the United States for the Indian with said purchase price, the title being taken in the United States, also has the legal status of the allotment, and is not subject to alienation. In other words, the purchase price of such an allotment when sold by the United States, or its proceeds when the United States uses such purchase price to purchase other property for the Indian, taking title in the name of the United States, does not become subject to alienation by the Indian. The United States taking the title in its own name in trust for the Indian is as an express and unequivocal manifestation of its intention not to relinquish the trust--not to turn the property over to the Indian to do with as he may please--and it seems to me that it rests exclusively with the United States, as trustee and as guardian of the Indian, to determine when, if at all, it will relinquish the trust and turn over the property to the Indian to do therewith as he may choose.'

The second and...