Parker v. Riley

Background

A full-blood Creek woman died in 1908 owning a homestead allotment, leaving a husband and two minor children. One child, Julia, was born after March 4, 1906. In 1912 the husband and the children, acting through guardians, signed an oil and gas lease that the Secretary of the Interior approved, and royalties have been paid into the Indian Bureau for the heirs. Lower courts divided the royalties into equal thirds among the three heirs.

Reasoning

The main question was whether the special rule in section nine of the 1908 Act gave Julia exclusive use of the homestead and therefore the income from the lease during her life, up to April 26, 1931. The Court read the statute to keep the restriction after the allottee’s death and to set the homestead aside for Julia’s support during her life but not beyond 1931. Because the lease sold extracted oil and gas and produced money, the Court treated the royalties as the homestead’s income. It held that Julia is entitled to use the income (the interest or returns from properly investing the royalties) during her life, while the principal of the royalties remains part of the heirs’ property when her special right ends. The Court reversed the lower courts’ equal-third distribution.

Real world impact

The decision means the child born after March 4, 1906, receives income from the lease during her life through 1931, while the capital is preserved for the heirs afterward. The Indian Bureau and the heirs must change how they distribute payments. The Court left open that a later official removal of restrictions could affect rights in other cases, but no such removal occurred here.