135 F.2d 658 | D.C. Cir. | 1943
In 1928, the assignors of the appellee, Ledbetter, were awarded, inter alia, a money judgment by the District Court of Carter County, Oklahoma. The succeeding fifteen years have been spent in unsuccess
The history of the claim and the protracted litigation associated therewith is somewhat detailed: In 1923, one Nellie Stechi, a full-blood Choctaw Indian woman, was a prospective heir to the estate of her deceased granddaughter. The expected inheritance consisted of a homestead allotment of land, part of which was in Carter County, Oklahoma, and a surplus allotment of land, all in Carter County, ten acres of each allotment being committed to oil and gas leases. Nellie Stechi entered into a written contract, unapproved by the Secretary or by any court, with Robert E. Lee and T. H. DuBois, attorneys, retaining them to establish whatever rights she had in the estate, and promising them in return for their professional efforts forty percent of whatever might be recovered in money, chattels, or lands. Soon thereafter, DuBois disclaimed any interest in the contract, but Lee did represent Nellie Stechi in various proceedings respecting her interests in the estate for a period of about two years. Lee was then discharged and the litigation prosecuted to a successful conclusion by other counsel. As a result, Nellie Stechi was adjudged the owner of the lands which had belonged to her granddaughter, and the royalties under the oil and gas leases thereon. Rents and royalties had been paid by the lessee oil companies to the agents of the Secretary of the Interior, in the belief that the homestead allotment and the royalties accruing therefrom remained restricted as provided by the Act of May 27, 1908.
Her rights to the inheritance established, Nellie Stechi filed suit in the District Court of Carter County, Oklahoma, in an effort to cancel her contract with Lee and DuBois. On January 16, 1928, however, this contract was upheld and Lee was granted judgment against the Indian woman for $30,791.80, representing forty percent of the royalty oil produced and sold from the homestead allotment between the years 1921 to 1927, inclusive; an undivided forty percent interest in the leased section of the homestead, together with forty percent of the rents and royalties accruing after January 1, 1928; a forty percent interest in the remainder of the homestead allotment; and a lien on the undivided sixty percent of the homestead allotment to secure the money judgment. On November 17, 1929, pending an appeal to the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, Nellie Stechi died. The appeal was revived in the name of her heirs, Sezzarine Lewis, Kelsey Samuel, Gardner Samuel, Aaron Nelson Samuel, and Ozella Samuel (hereinafter referred to as the Indian heirs), and the judgment of the District Court of Carter County was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Oklahoma.
On January 6, 1933, at the instance of the Secretary, the United States, in its own right and in its capacity as guardian of the Indian heirs, filed suit in the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Oklahoma against Lee, DuBois, and Ledbetter (individually and as trustee).
This construction of the 1908 Act was upheld by the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit,
Ledbetter later initiated the instant action for mandatory relief against the Secretary, as sole defendant, in the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia. The complaint recited the various State and Federal proceedings. The District Court upon the pleadings ordered the Secretary to pay to Ledbetter as trustee $36,675.16, with interest at six percent per annum from August 13, 1931, until paid, and $1,849.84, with interest at six percent per annum from September 19, 1938 (the date of the judgment of the United States District Court in Oklahoma), until paid. In appealing, the Secretary maintains (1) that the funds are held by him in trust for the Indian heirs; (2) that the payment thereof is not a proper subject for a suit 'in mandamus in that it requires that he exercise a discretion in choosing between the Indian heirs and Ledbetter as owners of the fund; (3) that the Indian heirs have not been joined as parties; (4) that, in any case, he was not a party to the Federal proceeding in Oklahoma; and finally (5), he contests the amount of interest awarded.
That the funds belonged to the appellee (and not to the Secretary in trust for the Indian heirs) has already been decided by the State courts of Oklahoma and the Federal courts in the Tenth Circuit, over whose decrees we have no appellate jurisdiction. Ownership in the funds having been established, we have only to determine whether the appellee has proceeded properly to gain possession of that which he has been adjudged to own.
We believe that mandamus was an appropriate remedy in the circumstances. The complaint does not invoke the Secretary’s discretion; all necessary discretion has been exercised for him by the decree of the United States District Court in Oklahoma. Naught remains for him to do but administer that decree. In order to find sufficient basis for affirming the mandatory award, we need look no further
The authority of our decision in the strikingly similar case of United States ex. rel. Warren v. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior,
The Secretary attempts to distinguish the Warren case. He argues that there the widow consented to the payment and did not claim adversely to the petitioner, whereas in the case at bar, the Indian heirs still are pressing their ownership in the funds. Whatever may be the claims of the Indian heirs, however, they have been adjudged, to have no basis in law by the State and Federal courts in Oklahoma. We are bound, as we have said, to treat the question of ownership as settled. In contemplation of law, therefore, the claim is as uncontested, here, as it was in the Warren case. In the latter case, the Indian widow admitted the contract of assignment to be valid, and we held that the Secretary was compelled to pay over the funds. In the instant case, the validity of the contract, although contested, has been upheld by both the State and Federal courts in Oklahoma. We feel that this places it at least in a position of parity with the contract upon which we allowed mandamus in the Warren case.
The Secretary would avoid the conclusive effects of res judicata by asserting that he was not a party to the proceedings before the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Oklahoma. The present action for mandamus, however, is not predicated upon the theory that the proceedings in the Federal courts of Oklahoma resulted in a judgment against the Secretary, either personally or in his official capacity, but rather upon the sound assumption that certain issues as to the funds in question were there conclusively determined as against the United States, the Indian heirs, and all other interested parties, leaving nothing but a mere ministerial duty in the Secretary to pay over those funds to the owner as determined.
Furthermore, we can conceive of no reason why the Indian heirs are necessary parties in the instant case when they were not so considered in the Warren case, unless they did not have their day in the United States District Court in Oklahoma. The appellee has pointed to convincing evidence that the heirs were represented in that proceeding. The amended bill of complaint filed in the United States District Court in Oklahoma by the United States shows that the suit was undertaken by it in behalf of the Indian heirs: “Comes now the plaintiff, The United States of America * * * at the request of the
One W. F. Semple, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, entered an appearance in the cause as “Attorney for defendants Gezarine Lewis, Kelsey Samuels, Gardner Samuels, Aaron Nelson Samuels, Ozella Samuels.”
Finally, on the notice of appeal by the United States from the decree of that court to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit there is signed, among others, the name W. F. Semple, “Attorney for the Restricted Indian Heirs at Law of Nellie Stetchi [sic], deceased. * * * ”
The remaining contention of the Secretary concerns the amount of interest awarded by the District Court. The funds held by the Secretary may be divided into two categories: (1) the funds adjudged to belong to the appellee, and (2) the funds belonging to the Indian heirs. Presumably, any interest paid to the appellee by the Secretary would be from the funds in the latter category. On January 27, 1933, however, Congress stepped in by passing an Act which restricted all funds in the hands of the Secretary belonging to the Indian heirs.
We feel that there is a short answer to this contention. It is true that a right to forty percent of the royalties accruing after January 1, 1928, was awarded by the District Court of Carter County, Oklahoma, on January 16, 1928, but no judgment was acquired upon this right until more than ten years later, on September 19, 1938, the date of the judgment of the United States District Court in Oklahoma, when the debt based upon that claim, as accrued to that date, was determined to be $1,849.84. In the interim, however, Congress had restricted the funds in the hands of the Secretary belonging to the Indian heirs. This, we feel, precludes the appellee from deriving further interest benefits from that fund, which, in our view, should not be used to provide interest upon a judgment rendered against the Indian heirs after the passage of an Act restricting its use.
The Secretary is ordered to pay the appellee, Ledbetter, as trustee, the sun of $36,-675.16, with interest at six per cent per annum from August 13, 1931, until paid, out of the homestead funds in his hands properly available for this purpose. The Secretary is further ordered to pay the appellee, as trustee, the sum of $1,849.84. No interest is allowed upon the latter sum.
Judgment modified and, as modified, affirmed.
Although there have been several incumbents since 1923, we have, for simplicity, designated the Secretary as though the same individual had held the office throughout.
35 Stat. 312, c. 199.
Stechi v. Lee, 1930, 145 Okl. 41, 291 P. 50.
Lewis v. Lee, 1932, 159 Okl. 257, 15 P.2d 3.
Lee v. Epperson, 1934, 168 Okl. 220, 32 P.2d 309.
United States v. Lee, D.C.E.D.Okl., 1938, 24 F.Supp. 814.
United States v. Lee, 10 Cir., 1939, 108 F.2d 936, cert. not sought.
Id., 10 Cir., 108 F.2d at page 942.
1934, 64 App.D.C. 27, 73 F.2d 844.
The names of the defendants are obviously misspelled.
47 Stat. 777, c. 23.
Rev.Stat. § 966 (1842), 28 U.S.C.A. § 811.
Statutes of Oklahoma (1931) § 9526, 15 O.S.1941, § 274.