Case Name: PHINEAS PAM-TO-PEE, ET AL., v. THE UNITED STATES
Court: Supreme Court of the United States
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1902-10
Citations: 38 Ct. Cl. 741
Docket Number: 
Parties: PHINEAS PAM-TO-PEE, ET AL., v. THE UNITED STATES.
Judges: Mr. Justice White delivered a dissenting opinion in which Mr. Justice McKenna concurred.
Reporter: United States Court of Claims Reports
Volume: 38
Pages: 741–742

Head Matter:
PHINEAS PAM-TO-PEE, ET AL., v. THE UNITED STATES.
[36 C. Cls. R., 427; 187 U. S. R., 371.]
On the claimanbi Afjpeal.
In a formér suit there are two adverse bodies of Indians seeking to recover per capita a treaty fund. The court ascertains" the amount of the fund and enters a judgment in the ordinary form of a judgment at law that the Pottawatomie Indians of Michigan recover $104,626. Congress appropriate for the payment of the judgment and by another act authorize the Secretary of the Interior to detail an inspector 11 to take a census of the Pottawatomie Indians of Indiana and Michigan who are entitled to ” the money appropriated. While the inspector is taking the census the Secretary is notified that there are claimants entitled to participate in the fund who are not being placed on the census roll. The Secretary orders that the names of all Indians appearing on certain rolls in the Indian Office be placed on the census roll. The claimants do nothing more. After the census roll has come in the Secretary adds a few names and waits more than a year, and then pays the fund to the Indians appealing on the corrected roll. The payment by him is without express authority, either in the judgment of the court or the acts of Congress. It now appears that many of the present claimants are entitled to participate. The question involved is whether the defendants should be required to pay to that extent a second time.
The court below decides—
1. An officer, executor, or administrator, who pays away a fund under the coercion of a decree of a court having jurisdiction can not be made to pay a second time, though the party seeking to recover is rightfully entitled to participate; neither can an innocent stakeholder who, without fault, negligence, or mistake, pays to the injury of a negligent party who failed to present his claim in due time.
2. Civilized Indian claimants residing in Michigan entitled to participate per capita in a certain fund, of which they had constructive notice, were bound to ascertain whether their names were on the pay roll, if ample time was given to enable them to do so, and where they did nothing, and the Secretary of the Interior paid away the fund to the Indians whose names were on the roll, the defendants should not be required to pay a second time.
3. The public notices required by courts of equity in cases of multitudinous defendants, requiring them to come in and assert their rights, are for the benefit of persons who have no knowledge of the suit.
4. An act of Congress authorizing Indians in Michigan to bring suit in this court to recover a treaty fund, the proceedings in the'suit in this court and on appeal, an appropriation "for the payment of the judgment, an act of Congress authorizing a census to be made of the Indians entitled to be paid, and the taking of the census by an agent of the Interior Department are more than equivalent to the publishing of a notice in the newspapers.
5. Where this court has exhausted its authority in a former case, in which it might have exercised the discretion of a court of equity and allowed parties to come in and assert their rights after decree, and the present suit is an action at law, the claimants must stand upon their legal rights. The court can not exercise equitable discretion, though the claimants are friendless and unlettered Indians entitled to the protection of a court of equity.
The decision of the court below is affirmed on the same grounds.

Opinion:
Mr. Justice Brewer
delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court'December 22, 1902.
Mr. Justice White delivered a dissenting opinion in which Mr. Justice McKenna concurred.