Tidal Oil Co. v. Flanagan, 263 U.S. 444 (1924)
Tidal Oil Company v. Flanagan
No. 179
Motion to dismiss or affirm submitted November 19, 1923
Decided January 7, 1924
263 U.S. 444
ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT
OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA
Syllabus
1. An Act of February 17, 1922, amending Jud.Code, § 237, provides:
In any suit involving the validity of a contract wherein it is claimed that a change in the rule of law or construction of statutes by the highest court of a state applicable to such contract would be repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, the Supreme Court shall, upon writ of error, reexamine, reverse, or affirm the final judgment of the highest court of a state in which a decision in the suit could be had, if said claim is made in said court at any time before said final judgment is entered and if the decision is against the claim so made.
Construed as not seeking to add to the general appellate jurisdiction of this Court existing under prior legislation, but to permit review by writ of error of the class of cases therein mentioned in which the defeated party claims that his constitutional rights have been violated by the judgment of the state court itself, and to permit the objection to be raised in the state court after the handing down of its opinion, and to be raised here even though petition for rehearing be denied by the state court without opinion. Pp. 450, 454.
2. The mere fact that a state supreme court decides against a party’s claim of property or contract right by reversing its earlier decision of the law applicable to such cases does not deprive him of his property without due process of law, contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment, nor amount to the passing of "any law" impairing the obligation of contracts contrary to the contract clause of the Constitution. Pp. 450-451.
3. This has been so often adjudged by the Court that contentions to the contrary are without substance, and a writ of error dependent on them must be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. Pp. 450, 455.
4. Cases distinguished in which it has been held that federal courts, exercising jurisdiction based on diverse citizenship, to avoid injustice, but without invoking the contract clause, may decide and enforce the state law as laid down by decisions of the state court governing when a contract was made, rather than by its later decisions, and those involving alleged impairment of contract by a subsequent statute in which the construction of the statute by the state court is accepted, but the existence, validity and scope of the contract (and, therein, the meaning of the state statutes forming part of it) and the effect upon the contract of the subsequent statute, are determined by this Court for itself. P. 451.
Writ of error to review 87 Okla. 231, dismissed.
Error to a judgment of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, which affirmed with modification a judgment in favor of the present defendant in error in his action involving the rights of the parties under conflicting deeds and agreements affecting an Indian allotment.