Blundell v. Wallace

Background

This case was a suit to decide ownership of a one-third interest in homestead and surplus lands originally allotted to Patsy Poff, a half-blood Choctaw Indian woman who died in 1916. By a 1912 will she left the entire allotment to her great-granddaughters and gave her husband only a nominal sum. The surviving husband asserted rights under an Oklahoma law that limits how much a married person may bequeath, and the state courts applied that law and awarded the interest to the defendant who traced title through the husband.

Reasoning

The central question was whether Oklahoma’s statute conflicted with §23 of the federal Act of April 26, 1906, which allows Indians generally to devise their estates but contains a proviso about full-blood Indians. The Court read §23 in light of the prior policy that local descent and will laws governed estates and concluded §23 removed only certain prior restrictions and did not broadly displace local law. Because the federal statute contains no provision comparable to those that would supplant state rules, the Court held there was no conflict and affirmed the state court’s judgment.

Real world impact

The decision means Oklahoma’s rule on how much a married person may bequeath applies to this allotment dispute, and state inheritance law can control disposition of Indian allotments unless Congress clearly provides otherwise. The ruling is narrow and turns on the specific federal proviso and the absence of an express federal regulation that would override state law.

Dissents or concurrances

The Court distinguished an earlier case that involved a federal law requiring Interior Department approval of wills; that earlier rule displaced state law, but the Court said the present federal statute contains no similar requirement and therefore leaves state law in place.