A controversy in a state court involving the power of the United
States Court of the Indian Territory to authorize and approve a
lease of an Indian allotment, subject, however, to the condition
that it be approved also by the Secretary of the Interior before
becoming operative, and involving also the validity and effect of
such a lease so judicially authorized and approved but disapproved
by the Secretary, and the power of the Secretary to disapprove it,
held, reviewable in this Court as concerning matters
inherently federal.
The United States Court for the Indian Territory, in authorizing
the guardian of a Cherokee minor to lease her allotment,
conditioned the authority upon the approval of the lease by the
Secretary of the Interior and ordered the guardian to report the
lease when executed
Page 243 U. S. 7
to the court and furnish a new bond to secure moneys
contemplated to be collected under it. So authorized, the guardian
and ward executed a form of lease containing provisions which
conferred upon the Secretary broad power to control its
performance, with a discretion to cancel it without legal
proceedings, and stipulating that, after approval by him, the lease
should be void if an additional bond subject to his approval were
not furnished. This instrument was reported to and approved by the
court, but, some months later, was expressly disapproved by the
Secretary.
Held:
(1) That the approval by the court was not absolute, but was
merely a prerequisite and preliminary to the submission of the
lease to the Secretary, as required by the original order.
(2) That this conclusion was corroborated by the terms of the
lease itself and by an allegation made by the plaintiff in error
(the lessee) in its petition in this case to the effect that the
court, in granting authority to make the lease, acquiesced in the
Secretary's claim that approval by him was prerequisite.
(3) That failure to give effect to the lease did not deny full
faith and credit to the order of the court authorizing the guardian
to make it.
(4) That, if the Secretary had no power of approval, no
authority to lease was conferred by the order.
44 Okl. 493, affirmed.
The case is stated in the opinion.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Wellsville Oil Company sued to protect its alleged rights as
lessee under an oil and gas lease and to set aside a conflicting
lease held by the Alpha Oil Company. Upon demurrer, the petition
was dismissed for want of cause of action, and the judgment to that
effect was affirmed by the court below.
Page 243 U. S. 8
To state the undisputed facts which led to the bringing of the
suit, and upon which its determination depends, will make clear the
issues. Martha Miller, born Everett, owned land which had been
allotted to her as a Cherokee of the full blood, and which, through
her guardian, under authority of court, approved by the Secretary
of the Interior, had been leased in 1905 for the term of her
minority for oil and gas purposes, the lease having by assignment
passed to the Wellsville Oil Company, also with the approval of the
Secretary of the Interior. In 1907, the guardian filed in the
United States court, Northern Judicial District of the Indian
Territory, a request for authority to make a new lease to the
Wellsville Oil Company for fifteen years. It was stated that the
minor was then within one year of majority, that the existing lease
would expire at that time, and that the Oil Company, in view of the
short time which the lease had yet to run, was engaged in pumping
oil night and day, and would probably extract all of the oil before
the expiration of the lease, to the great detriment and injury of
the minor and her property, as the price of oil was very low and
the royalties would amount to very little. It was averred that the
Oil Company had agreed that it would abandon the "excessive and
damaging pumping" in which it was engaged if it could get a new
lease for fifteen years, and proposed to pay a bonus and an
additional royalty. The court, after a reference, entered an order
authorizing the lease, expressly, however, causing the authority to
make it to depend upon the approval of the Secretary of the
Interior, and providing that only when the lease was so approved
should it take the place of the old and existing lease, which had
yet a year to run. The order directed the guardian to report the
lease by him made, and to furnish a new bond to secure the bonus
and the additional sums to be paid. Acting under this authority, on
the form of lease prepared and exacted by the Interior
Department,
Page 243 U. S. 9
the parties executed the fifteen-year lease. This in the fullest
way gave the Secretary of the Interior control over the parties in
performing the obligations of the lease, delegated to the Secretary
authority to cancel the lease without resort to legal proceedings
if he deemed the situation required it, and expressly exacted that,
after approval by the Secretary, the lease should be void unless an
additional bond, subject to his approval, was given. The lease thus
drawn was reported to the court, and was by it approved on July 24,
1907. It was forwarded by the Indian agent in October of that year
to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for submission to the
Secretary of the Interior, and was by the Secretary in the same
month expressly disapproved.
A little more than three years later, the petition to which we
have at the outset referred was filed, and, some months thereafter,
in September, 1911, there was an amended petition. This petition
was divided into two counts. The first, after reciting the facts
which we have stated as to the making of the new lease and the
disapproval of the same by the Secretary, charged that the
plaintiff had remained in possession of the property under the new
lease; that it worked and developed the same, producing oil
therefrom, but that it was unable to dispose of the oil, as the
only means for its outlet was through the pipeline of the Prairie
Oil Company, and that company, under the influence of the Secretary
of the Interior, had refused to pay for the oil on the ground of
the nonexistence of the lease. It was further charged that, some
time after Martha Miller, the lessor, had become of age, she had
leased the property to the Alpha Oil Company for gas and oil
purposes, that that company had fraudulently interfered with the
exercise of the rights of plaintiff under its lease and had ousted
the plaintiff of possession, and had wrongfully held possession
until 1910, in which year it had abandoned the property. It was
alleged that, following this
Page 243 U. S. 10
abandonment, the plaintiff had retaken possession and continued
to produce oil and transmit it through the pipes of the Prairie Oil
Company without pay, as in the previous period. It was charged that
the fifteen-year lease was valid, that the Secretary of the
Interior was wholly without authority of law to disapprove the
same, that, while the court, in sanctioning the lease, had
acquiesced in his claim of authority to do so, that acquiescence
was nothing worth, and the lease, as made, was valid
notwithstanding the disapproval of the Secretary. There was an
inconsistent claim in the petition that the court, by approving the
lease as presented by the guardian prior to its transmission to the
Secretary of the Interior for his action, had virtually sanctioned
the lease upon the theory that the approval of the Secretary was
not necessary. The second count asserted, under the theory of the
validity of the lease, the right to the proceeds of the oil in the
hands of the Prairie Oil Company, and even upon the hypothesis that
the lease was invalid, the right to be reimbursed a very large
amount of expenses and costs of improvements which it was alleged
had been made in working and developing the property.
The prayer was for a judgment upholding the validity of the
fifteen-year lease, and annulling the lease to the Alpha Oil
Company, and awarding the proceeds of oil in the hands of the
Prairie Oil Company to the plaintiff. It was further prayed, under
the hypothesis that the fifteen-year lease should not be upheld,
that there be a judgment for the costs and expenses, as averred in
the second count.
The petition was demurred to on the ground that it stated no
cause of action. The demurrer was sustained, and as the plaintiff
elected to stand upon its pleading, a judgment was entered
dismissing the petition on the merits. By order of court and
consent of parties, it came to pass that the proceeds of the oil
which had been hitherto
Page 243 U. S. 11
received by the Prairie Oil Company were subjected to the order
of the court for ultimate distribution, and an agreement was had
concerning the right of the Prairie Oil Company to retain the
proceeds of the oil produced by the operations under the lease
until it became possible to distribute the same by a final
disposition of the cause. The case was then taken to the court
below. It was there decided: (a) that the plaintiff was not in a
position to invoke the equitable powers of the court for the
purpose of enforcing the fifteen-year lease, because it appeared
that the lease had been procured by the wrongdoing of the
petitioner in excessively exercising its right to pump as a means
of forcing the making to it of a new lease for a long period, and
(b) that, in any event, as the new lease had, by the order of the
court, been in express terms subjected, as a condition precedent,
to the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, the failure of
that officer to so approve -- indeed, his express disapproval --
had prevented the power to make the lease from taking being, and
therefore there was no foundation whatever upon which to base the
claim that the lease had been lawfully executed, and it was held
that there was hence no necessity for passing upon the question of
legal power in the Secretary to approve or disapprove. In other
words, it was decided that, if the Secretary had power, the failure
to approve was an end of the controversy; if he had not the power,
the same result followed, since the court which granted the right
had, in express terms, permitted it to be exercised only upon the
precedent condition that its exertion was approved by the
Secretary. In addition, the court held that the contention that,
because the form of lease as drawn was reported to the court, which
had given the authority to make it, subject to the approval of the
Secretary of the Interior, and received its approval before action
by the Secretary, therefore the condition of precedent action of
the Secretary was waived or withdrawn was without
Page 243 U. S. 12
foundation. The court did not pass upon the question raised upon
the second count concerning the right to recover costs and expenses
if the lease were held not to exist, upon the ground that, as the
petitioner was in possession, that question might be reserved for
ulterior consideration. 44 Okl. 493.
Following this judgment, the trial court distributed the money
which had accumulated in its custody by virtue of the agreement
previously made as well as a further sum derived from the delivery
of oil from the leased property which was in the hands of the
Prairie Oil Company. This distribution was made upon the basis of
the nonexistence of the fifteen-year lease, of the right of Martha
Miller to possession subject to the lease by her made to the Alpha
Oil Company, on a ratio which was agreed upon between the two
interested parties, and there was a judgment against the Wellsville
Oil Company for costs. The appeal of that company, taken from this
order, was dismissed by the court below on the ground that the
order substantially embraced only a distribution of funds which had
been virtually directed to be distributed by the previous judgment.
In thus disposing of the case, it was held that the assignment of
error made by the Wellsville Oil Company concerning the failure to
allow it costs and expenses, as urged in the second count of its
petition, was not foreclosed, because, being in possession, as
previously held, that subject might be litigated when an attempt to
oust the possession was made. In this connection, the court
observed that, while it was true a recital was contained in the
order of distribution that Martha Miller was entitled to possession
as owner, as no process was directed to issue giving effect to this
decree, it was a mere surplusage, which left the question open. 150
P. 186.
All consideration of error committed in refusing, in either
judgment, to allow the costs and expenses asserted in the
Page 243 U. S. 13
second count of the petition, may be at once put aside, as it is
declared in the argument for the plaintiff in error that this
particular phase of the case is not urged. Moreover, before coming
to consider the merits of the errors relied upon, we observe that,
because of the federal nature of the court which authorized the
lease whose validity was involved, the subject matter with which
the case dealt (Indian land), and the asserted want of power in the
Secretary of the Interior to disapprove the lease, and the further
assertion that the court had no authority, in any event, to subject
the lease to the approval of the Secretary, we think the issues
involved so concern matters of inherently federal nature as to
afford jurisdiction.
Swafford v. Templeton, 185 U.
S. 487;
Fritzlen v. Boatmen's Bank,
212 U. S. 364;
Ohio ex Rel. Davis v. Hildebrant, 241 U.
S. 565. We therefore overrule the motion to dismiss.
Without following the elaborate argument of the plaintiff in
error and the various propositions which that argument advances, we
content ourselves with saying that every proposition relied upon
will be embraced and disposed of by these considerations:
First. The contention that the court which authorized
the lease retracted the condition precedent of approval by the
Secretary of the Interior which it had previously imposed because
it approved the executed lease before it had been presented to the
Secretary, when it was reported to the court by the guardian in
conformity with previous directions to that effect, is plainly
without merit (a) because, as pointed out by the court below, the
report of the lease and its approval were mere prerequisite and
preliminary steps to the submission of the lease to the Secretary
for his action in order that the condition precedent which the
court had established might be brought into play; (b) because the
contention is directly in conflict with the express terms of the
lease which was submitted and approved, every condition of which
made it manifest
Page 243 U. S. 14
that it was drawn with reference to the power of the Secretary
to approve or disapprove the same, and that its execution was
subject to all the conditions, limitations, and restrictions
resulting from that situation; (c) because the contention is
directly in conflict with the petition which, as we have already
pointed out, in express terms alleged that the Secretary asserted
the power to approve, and that the court, in giving the authority,
acquiesced in such assertion of authority as a prerequisite.
Second. The contention that the failure to give effect
to the lease was a denial of full faith and credit to the order of
the court authorizing the guardian to make the lease involves, on
its face, a misconception, and comes to saying that, because the
condition precedent which was imposed by the order of authorization
-- that is, the approval of the Secretary -- was enforced, thereby
there resulted a failure to give effect to the order. In other
words, the argument is that, because the court gave full effect to
the judgment, it failed to carry it out. In fact, on the very face
of the petition, of the assignments of error, and of all the
arguments, it is apparent that they rest upon the plainly erroneous
assumption which we thus point out, since they all but assert that
the power to execute the lease, which was given only upon the
precedent condition of approval by the Secretary, should have been
upheld despite the fact that such approval was never obtained. As
the petition averred that, acquiescing in the possession by the
Secretary of legal authority to approve the lease, the court gave
the right to make it, only conditioned upon such approval, it
follows that the averment that there was no legal power in the
Secretary to approve was negligible, since it but asserted that the
power to make the lease never arose.
Affirmed.