ENGLISH
v.
RICHARDSON, TREASURER OF TULSA COUNTY, OKLAHOMA
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
A Creek Nation member holding a patent for forty acres issued in 1902 sought to challenge a tax assessment on her homestead allotment, which Congress had declared non-taxable and inalienable for twenty-one years. The Supreme Court reversed the dismissal of her complaint, holding that her constitutional right to the tax exemption granted by Congress was protected under the same principles established in Choate v. Trapp, and that the differences between her patent and those issued to other tribes were immaterial to her exemption claim.
© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Mr. Justice Lamar delivered the opinion of the court.
The plaintiff holds a patent dated December 12, 1902. It was issued to her as a member of the Creek Nation when the tribal lands were divided in pursuance of the same general policy as that discussed in Choate v. Trapp, ante, p. 665. There were, however, a few differences. The tax exemption covered only the homestead of forty acres, and there was a restriction on alienability for 21 years. The patent, instead of being “framed in conformity with the Agreement,” as in the case of the Choctaws and Chickasaws, bore on its face a provision-that the land should be non-taxable; the language of the Agreement incorporated in the act of Congress, being that “Each citizen shall select from his allotment forty acres of land . . . as a homestead, which shall be and remain non-taxable, inalienable and free from any encumbrance whatever for 21 years from the date of the deed therefor, and a separate deed shall be issued to each allottee for his homestead, in which this condition shall appear.”
• These differences are not material. The right of plaintiff to the exemption granted by Congress is protected by the Constitution on principles stated and applied in Choate v. Trapp. The judgment dismissing her complaint is therefore reversed and the case remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with that opinion.
Reversed.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Jones v. Prairie Oil & Gas Co., 273 U.S. 195 (U.S. 1927)
-
Bryan Cnty. v. United States, 123 F.2d 782 (10th Cir. 1941)…P. 709, the Supreme Court of the state of Oklahoma upheld the validity of the Act of 1908, subjecting certain Indian allotments to taxation. In 1912 the Supreme Court of the United States in Choate v. Trapp, supra, and Gleason v. Wood, 224 U.S. 679, 32 S.Ct. 571, 56 L.Ed. 947, and English v. Richardson, 224 U.S. 680, 32 S.Ct. 571, 56 L.Ed. 949, reversed the decisions of the Supreme Court of the state of Oklahoma, holding that the consent of the members of the Five Civilized Tribes to the division of the lan…1 / 2
-
Landman v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 123 F.2d 787 (10th Cir. 1941)…56 L.Ed. 820; Mullen v. United States, 224 U.S. 448, 32 S.Ct. 494, 56 L.Ed. 834; Goat v. United States, 224 U.S. 458, 32 S.Ct. 544, 56 L.Ed. [*790] 841; Choate v. Trapp, 224 U.S. 665, 32 S.Ct. 565, 56 L.Ed. 941; English v. Richardson, 224 U.S. 680, 32 S.Ct. 571, 56 L.Ed. 949; Bryan County, Okl. v. United States, 10 Cir., 123 F. 2d 782. It was held in Carpenter v. Shaw, 280 U.S. 363, 50 S.Ct. 121, 122, 74 L.Ed. 478, that “While in general tax exemptions are not to be presumed and statutes conferring them ar…