Joines v. Patterson, 274 U.S. 544 (1927)
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Joines v. Patterson
No. 298
Argued April 26, 1927
Decided May 31, 1927
274 U.S. 544
CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT
OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA
Syllabus
1. Conclusions of a state supreme court based upon questions of federal law wrongly determined, and acted upon, require a reversal of the judgment and remand of the cause for further proceedings.
2. Laws of Arkansas, when extended over the Indian Territory by Congress, carried with them the settled constructions placed upon them by the Arkansas courts, and, so construed, became in effect laws of the United States as though originally enacted by Congress for the government of the Territory. P. 549.
3. Under § 3509 of Mansfield’s Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, as extended to the Indian Territory, a proceeding by a guardian to sell land of his Choctaw Indian wards, allotted under the Choctaw-Chickasaw Supplemental Agreement in the name of their deceased ancestor, was an original proceeding -- not ancillary to that in which the guardian was appointed -- and was properly begun in the United States Court for that Territory of the judicial district in which the land was situate, and, under the Oklahoma Enabling Act, upon creation of that state, the cause was properly transferable to a county court of a county included within the former district in which it was begun and embracing in part the land, although that was not the district in which the guardian was appointed. P. 551.
4. The seven-year limitation prescribed by § 4471 of Mansfield’s Digest upon suits to recover land began to run from the taking of possession by one who continued in open peaceful possession for the allotted time, though claiming under void muniments. P 553.
5. Rights of action arising in the Indian Territory before the admission of Oklahoma as a state remained subject to the Arkansas statute of limitations. P. 554.
114 Okla. 9 reversed.
Certiorari (271 U.S. 638) to a judgment of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma directing a final decree for the respondents herein, in their suit to establish against the petitioner their claim of title to allotted Choctaw lands.