Ward v. Love County

253 U.S. 17 (1920)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Ps are members of the Choctaw tribe and wards of the United States. Ps received their allotments out of the tribal domain under a congressional enactment of 1898, which subjected the right of alienation to certain restrictions and provided that 'the lands allotted shall be nontaxable while the title remains in the original allottee, but not to exceed twenty-one years from date of patent.' In the Act of 1906, enabling Oklahoma to become a State, Congress made it plain that no impairment of the rights of property pertaining to the Indians was intended and the State included in its constitution a provision exempting from taxation 'such property as may be exempt by reason of treaty stipulations, existing between the Indians and the United States government, or by Federal laws, during the force and effect of such treaties or Federal laws.' Congress, by an act of 1908, removed the restrictions on alienation as to certain classes of allottees, including the present claimants, and declared that all land from which the restrictions were removed 'shall be subject to taxation . . . as though it were the property of other persons than allottees.' D and other counties began to tax the allotted lands. Ps claimed that the tax exemption was a vested property right that could not be abrogated or destroyed pursuant to the Constitution of the United States. Ps sought to recover money alleged to have been coercively collected from them by D, as taxes on their allotments, which under the laws and Constitution of the United States were nontaxable. The county commissioners disallowed the claim and Ps appealed to the district court of the county. D filed a demurrer, which was overruled. D then elected not to plead further. Ps got the judgment which was reversed by the Supreme Court of Oklahoma. Eventually, the Supreme Court held that the exemption was a vested property right that Congress could not repeal consistently with the Fifth Amendment, that it was binding on the taxing authorities in Oklahoma, and that the state courts had erred in refusing to enjoin them from taxing the lands. With full knowledge of the suits and D proceeded with the taxation of the allotments, threatening to sell the lands unless the taxes were paid. To prevent such a sale and to avoid the imposition of a penalty of eighteen percent, for which the local statute provided, Ps paid the taxes. They protested and objected at the time that the taxes were invalid, and D knew that all the allottees were pressing the objection in the pending suits. The state district court held that the county was bound to repay the money. The State Supreme Court held that the taxes were not collected by coercive means, but were paid voluntarily, and could not be recovered back as there was no statutory authority therefor; and, that there was no statute making D liable for taxes collected and then paid over to the State and municipal bodies other than D. Because Ps' complaint did not show how much of the taxes was retained by the county, or how much paid over to the State and other municipal bodies, it could not be the basis of any judgment against D. D now challenges the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court because the judgment was entirely on independent non-federal grounds which were broad enough to sustain the judgment.