Larkin v. Paugh

Background

An Indian man named Lewis Greyhair received an allotment of land in 1901 and a trust patent in 1902 that kept the land under U.S. control and barred sales for 25 years. In 1916 Greyhair applied for a fee simple patent (which would remove the federal trust and allow sale), and the Indian Office and local superintendent favorably recommended it. With the superintendent’s approval Greyhair and his wife signed a contract to sell the land to a buyer named Osborn and received a down payment. Greyhair died the next day. A fee simple patent was issued nineteen days after his death. An administrator later obtained a state-court decree enforcing the sale, delivered a deed to Osborn, and Osborn took possession. Years later the heirs deeded the land to an attorney, who sued in federal court to cancel the administrator’s deed.

Reasoning

The central question was whether a fee patent issued after the allottee’s death could vest title and allow the state court to enforce the sale. The Court relied on an old federal statute saying patents issued after a grantee’s death vest in the heirs as if issued during life, and it held that this rule applies to Indian allotments. Once the fee patent issued, the United States’ trust and the restriction against sale ended, title passed to the heirs, and questions about the land became matters for the courts in Nebraska. Because the state court had jurisdiction and decided the sale contract and assignment, its decree was final and not open to a collateral attack in the later federal suit.

Real world impact

The ruling means that a fee patent issued after an allottee’s death operates to vest ownership in heirs, ends the federal trust and alienation restriction, and leaves title disputes to state courts. Final state-court decrees resolving such disputes are conclusive on the parties and their successors, preventing later collateral attacks on the same question.