United States v. Bruisedhead, Civ. No. 2515.

• Decision Date: 07 January 1966
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 2515.
• Citation: 248 F. Supp. 999
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Peter BRUISEDHEAD and Genevieve Bruisedhead, his wife, Ethel Leech, and A. E. Leech Company, a Montana Corporation, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Montana

248 F. Supp. 999

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Peter BRUISEDHEAD and Genevieve Bruisedhead, his wife, Ethel Leech, and A. E. Leech Company, a Montana Corporation, Defendants.

Civ. No. 2515.

United States District Court D. Montana, Great Falls Division.

January 7, 1966.

Moody Brickett, U. S. Atty., Butte, Mont., and Arthur W. Ayers, Jr., Asst. U. S. Atty., Billings, Mont., for plaintiff.

Jardine, Stephenson, Blewett & Weaver, Great Falls, Mont., for defendants Ethel Leech and A. E. Leech Co.

JAMESON, District Judge.

Plaintiff seeks to quiet title in the United States, in trust for the Blackfeet Tribe of Indians of Montana, to all minerals in an 80 acre tract of land located on the Blackfeet Reservation,¹ and to amend a patent issued to the defendant Peter Bruisedhead² to include a reservation of the minerals. The defendants Peter Bruisedhead and Genevieve Bruisedhead, his wife, are in default. Their successors in interest, the defendants Ethel Leech and A. E. Leech Company, and the plaintiff have respectively moved for summary judgment on an agreed statement of facts. This court has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1345.

On August 11, 1922, pursuant to the provisions of the Act of June 30, 1919 (41 Stat. 3, 16-17),³ a restricted patent was issued to Minkwoman Runningrabbit, Blackfeet Allottee No. 903, as a homestead. The patent contains a restriction against alienation "until Congress shall otherwise direct", and reserves "to the United States, in accordance with the provisions of the Act of June 30, 1919 (41 Stat. 17), all minerals, including coal, oil and gas, for the benefit of the Blackfeet Tribe of Indians, until Congress shall otherwise direct."

In addition to the 80 acre homestead, Minkwoman Runningrabbit was allotted 320 acres in 1918. No part of the 320 acre tract is involved in this proceeding.

Minkwoman Runningrabbit died in April, 1917. Her estate was probated by the Department of the Interior, and an order determining the defendant Peter Bruisedhead to be Runningrabbit's sole heir was entered on December 13, 1921.

On June 2, 1924, Public Law No. 173 (43 Stat. 252) was enacted. This statute provided:

"That the allotments of Blackfeet Indians designated as homesteads under section 10 of the Act of June 30, 1919 (Forty-first Statutes at Large, page 16), imposing restrictions on alienation, shall after the death of the original allottee be subject to partition, sale, issuance of patents in fee, or any other disposition authorized by existing law relating to Indian allotments."⁴

On August 22, 1925, a fee patent (No. 965485) covering both the 80 acre tract and the 320 acres not involved here was issued to "Peter Bruisedhead, heir of Minkwoman Runningrabbit, an Indian of the Blackfeet Tribe." This patent contains neither a restriction against alienation nor a mineral reservation.

On April 24, 1947, Peter Bruisedhead and his wife executed a warranty deed to the 80 acre tract to the defendant Ethel Leech, reserving "six and one-fourth (6¼) per cent of the land owners royalty in the oil, gas, or other minerals in and under, produced and saved from said premises." On May 14, 1963, Mrs. Leech conveyed the tract by warranty deed to the defendant A. E. Leech Company.

The Government contends that notwithstanding the absence of any mineral reservation in the 1925 fee patent issued to Peter Bruisedhead, the minerals in the 80 acre tract remained in the United States in trust for the Blackfeet Tribe and did not pass to Bruisedhead upon issuance of the fee patent. The defendants Ethel Leech and A. E. Leech Company contend that the congressional authorization to issue a patent in fee contained in the Act of June 2, 1924, "gave the Secretary authority to convey a fee simple estate which included the minerals in and under the land." Such an estate, they argue, was conveyed to Bruisedhead by the 1925 patent.

The parties agree that the fact that Minkwoman Runningrabbit died before the issuance of the trust patent to her in 1922 did not prevent Bruisedhead, as her heir, from taking title to the property. Runningrabbit, having been allotted 320 acres in 1918 was entitled, under the terms of the Act of June 30, 1919, to receive a homestead allotment as an Indian "who had been allotted or may be entitled to rights within said reservation."

In Larkin v. Paugh, 1928, 276 U.S. 431, 48 S.Ct. 366, 72 L.Ed. 640, an Indian allottee died before a fee patent to his allotment was issued. The Court held that the operation of the patent was controlled by 43 U.S.C. 1152 which provides:

"Where patents for public lands have been or may be issued, in pursuance of any law of the United States, to a person who has died or who hereafter dies before the date of such patent, the title to the land designated therein shall inure to and become vested in the heirs, devisees, or assignees of such deceased patentee as if the patent had issued to the deceased person during life."

In construing this statute the Court stated:

"We conclude that by reason of this statute the fee-simple patent * * * operated to invest his the allottee's `heirs, devisees or assignees' with the title, and to divest the United States of it, `as if' the patent had been issued to him `during life.' Of course those who received the title, whether heirs, devisees or assignees, took it as though it came from him, and not as if they were the immediate grantees of the United States. See Harris v. Bell, 254 U.S. 103, 108, 41 S.Ct. 49, 65 L.Ed. 159. The statute leaves no room for doubt on this point. (276 U.S. 438-439, 48 S.Ct. 368)."⁵

Accordingly the sole question at issue is whether the fee patent to Bruisedhead operated as a valid conveyance of the minerals. Obviously in the absence of a restriction or reservation a fee simple patent covers the minerals as well as the surface rights. Did the reference to "patents in fee" in the Act of June 2, 1924, authorize the issuance of a fee patent without reserving the minerals? It is my conclusion that it did not. This Act merely removed the restriction against alienation found in the Act of June 30, 1919, and did not authorize a conveyance of the minerals.

The Act of June 30, 1919, plainly required that the trust patents issued pursuant thereto contain a reservation of the minerals for the benefit of the Blackfeet Tribe of Indians. The effect of statutes requiring a reservation of minerals was considered in British-American Oil Producing Co. v. Board of Equalization of State of Montana, 1936, 299 U.S. 159, 164-165, 57 S.Ct. 132, 134, 81 L.Ed. 95, where the Court stated:

"The issue of the trust patents containing, as the statute requires, a reservation for the benefit of the tribe of all minerals, including oil and gas, in or under the allotted land, operates to carve out of such land and create a distinct estate consisting of the minerals. This estate is in itself land, and, being reserved for the benefit of the tribe, it is tribal land, and is unallotted."

It is thus clear that the allotment to Minkwoman Runningrabbit never included the minerals in the 80 acre tract.

Peter Bruisedhead's right to receive title to the allotment was a right of heirship, and he received title to the property as an heir of Minkwoman Runningrabbit and not as an immediate grantee of the United States. Larkin v. Paugh, supra. As an heir Bruisedhead took title only to the interests allotted. These interests did not include the minerals since there had been no allotment of the minerals under the Act of June 30, 1919.

An analysis of the language of the Act of June 2, 1924, supports the conclusion that Peter Bruisedhead was not entitled to and did not receive title to the minerals in the 80 acre tract. That act applied only to "the allotments of Blackfeet Indians designated as homesteads under section 10 of the Act of June 30, 1919 * * *," and as pointed out above, Minkwoman Runningrabbit's allotment did not include the minerals.

The Act of June...