Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/245/308/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 07:01:34+00:00

Document:
An allotment certificate issued under the Choctaw-Chickasaw agreement of July I, 1902, c. 1362, 32 Stat. 641, passes the equitable title only; the legal title remains in the United States until conveyed by patent, duly recorded, as provided by § 5 of the Act of April 26, 1906, c. 1876, 34 Stat. 137, and the allotment in the meantime is subject to be set aside, by the Secretary of the Interior, for fraudulent procurement.
The doctrine of bona fide purchase will not aid the holder of an equity to overcome the holder of both the legal title and an equity.
the letter, disregard the spirit of the law. So held where the relator, purchaser in good faith and without notice of a fraudulent Indian allotment, sought to get in the legal title as against the United States by compelling the Secretary of the Interior to issue and record a patent.
This is a petition for a writ of mandamus brought in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia to compel the Secretary of the Interior to restore the name of Nicholas Alberson, deceased, to the rolls under the Choctaw-Chickasaw Agreement of July 1, 1902 (32 Stat. 641), and to execute and record a patent for land described in an allotment certificate issued in his name by the Dawes Commission.
to the relator, who had, under the Oklahoma law, recorded the deed assigning the certificates, and was in actual possession of the premises. The certificates had issued on or before April 7, 1906. The notation removing Alberson's name from the rolls was made January 11, 1908. The relator purchased the certificates before January 11, 1908, for value in good faith without knowledge of the fraud or notice of the proceedings for cancellation hereinbefore referred to. The Supreme Court entered judgment for the relator, commanding issue and record of the patent, but making no order in respect to restoring Alberson's name to the rolls. The relator acquiesced in the judgment, but, on writ of error sued out by respondent, the judgment was reversed by the Court of Appeals (44 App.D.C. 63), and the relator brings the case here on writ of error.
"allotment certificates issued by the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes shall be conclusive evidence of the right of any allottee to the tract of land described therein"
has relation to rights between the holder and third parties. The title conferred by the allotment is an equitable one, so that supervisory power remained in the Secretary of the Interior.
We are not required to decide whether, as suggested in Lowe v. Fisher, 223 U. S. 95, 223 U. S. 107, the power to remove Alberson's name from the rolls had, because of § 2 of Act April 26, 1906, expired before the Secretary acted. For the Supreme Court of the district did not order the name restored, and its judgment was acquiesced in by the relator. The claim which the relator makes in this Court rests wholly upon the fact that the relator was a bona fide purchaser for value. But the doctrine of bona fide purchaser for value applies only to purchasers of the legal estate. Hawley v. Diller, 178 U. S. 476, 178 U. S. 484. It "is in no respect a rule of property, but a rule of inaction." Pomeroy, Equity Jurisprudence, § 743. It is a shield by which the purchaser of a legal title may protect himself against the holder of an equity, not a sword by which the owner of an equity may overcome the holder of both the legal title and an equity. Boone v. Chiles, 10 Pet. 177, 35 U. S. 210.
See, e.g., Stephens v. Cherokee Nation, 174 U. S. 455; Woodward v. De Graffenreid, 238 U. S. 284.
People ex rel. v. Assessors, 137 N.Y. 201; People ex rel. v. Jeroloman, 139 N.Y. 14; Commonwealth ex rel. Vandyke v. Henry, 49 Pa. 530; Indiana Road Machine Co. v. Keeney, 147 Mich. 184; United States v. Fisher, 39 App.D.C. 176, 181.

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