Opinion ID: 1132298
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Armstrong Raised and Fully Litigated the Question of the Federal Court's Jurisdiction to Render the Judgment

Text: Armstrong collaterally attacks the decision of the federal court on the basis that the prior litigation is facially void for want of jurisdictional power to render the particular judgment rendered. [18] In her brief-in-chief and reply brief to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, she squarely raised the issue of the federal court's lack of jurisdiction to render a judgment which, she argued, gave approval to the conveyance of restricted land. More specifically, in Proposition II of her brief-in-chief she argued that although the 1947 Act gives exclusive jurisdiction to approve conveyances of restricted Indian lands to the state county court, the federal district court presumed to approve the deed to Becko, [19] and in Proposition II of her reply brief  titled The trial court was without jurisdiction to conduct an approval proceeding  she again objected to the federal court's jurisdiction. [20] Armstrong raises again the very same issue, and argues here, that the effect of the federal-court decision was to give approval to a conveyance of restricted Indian lands which the federal court was without power to do. Just as the issue of the federal court's jurisdiction to render the judgment has been raised, so also it has been fairly and fully litigated. [21] Even if the issue had not been raised and litigated in the federal suit, we do not believe that the judgment would be facially void. The federal court did not attempt to usurp the county court's jurisdiction by either approving or disapproving the conveyance in suit. Instead, it merely determined that two-thirds of Armstrong's interest in the land was not subject to the 1947 Act and that laches operated to bar her claim to the remaining one-third interest. It is an elementary tenet of law that once the question of jurisdiction has been raised and decided, issue preclusion operates to disallow any future litigation of that issue. [22] Because the federal district court fully and fairly settled the jurisdictional infirmity here under challenge, its relitigation in a collateral attack is barred by issue preclusion. The principle applies even where a court's decision regarding its jurisdiction might constitute a patently erroneous application of the law. [23] In summary, since Armstrong's challenge to the judgment for a facially-apparent jurisdictional deficiency is closed to her, the attack launched in the present case must fail.