La Roque v. United States

Background

This case concerns an allotment on the White Earth Indian Reservation in Minnesota. Vincent La Roque was a Chippewa born in 1883 who was listed in the Nelson Act census and would have been entitled to an allotment if living. He died shortly after 1889 without selecting an allotment. Later, officers issued a trust patent in his name for a parcel of reservation land. Henry La Roque, Vincent’s father and sole heir, claimed the land under that patent. The United States sued to cancel the patent, and the lower courts disagreed until the Circuit Court of Appeals ordered cancellation.

Reasoning

The Court addressed whether the Nelson Act and the general allotment law allowed allotments to be made for Indians who died before selection. It relied on the Interior Department’s long-standing practice that allotments are to be selected by living Indians or by their authorized representatives and that selection rights do not descend to heirs. The Court held the statutes and their administration show selection was personal to living members. It also rejected arguments that the census fixed who would receive allotments. The Court further found the six-year public-land limitation did not bar the suit because the trust patent covered reserved Indian lands, not public lands, and declined to read the 1904 correction provision as removing court authority to cancel such patents.

Real world impact

The decision cancels a patent issued in the name of a deceased person and confirms heirs cannot claim selection rights that the deceased had not exercised. It affirms the government’s and courts’ power to correct improperly issued trust patents affecting reservation land.