Court Opinion

ID: 9425465
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:14:47.365108+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:55.691871
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Douglas,
with whom Mr. Justice Stewart concurs,
dissenting.
Appellants claim title to the mineral interests here in controversy through deeds recording the severed interests on the books of the Seminole County Clerk in 1926 and 1930. In 1952 the owner of the separate surface interest failed to pay ad valorem taxes and the county satisfied its tax claim by selling the entire fee to the appellees after “notice” through newspaper publication. The tax-sale statutes did not require that notice be given to the mineral owners by way of personal service, mailing, or *103posting, and no such notice was attempted. In an action to quiet title appellants contended that, as record owners of the mineral rights, they were never given constitutionally sufficient notice of the tax delinquency proceedings and as to them.the proceedings were invalid. See Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306 (1950).
The trial court, finding the tax-sale proceedings valid and finding appellants’ attack on the tax-sale deed barred by the statute of limitations, quieted title in appellees. The Oklahoma Court of Appeals reversed that judgment but was itself reversed by the Oklahoma Supreme Court, each court addressing itself expressly only to the constitutional claim. The Court today remands the case to determine whether appellants adequately preserved the right to challenge the adverse trial court ruling on the statute of limitations issue and whether this may serve as an independent bar to the assertion of their claim.
It should first be noted that proper preservation of this issue in the state courts is a hurdle facing not the appellants but the appellees. The Oklahoma Court of Appeals quieted title in appellants and thus must necessarily have found, not only that the tax sale was constitutionally infirm, but also that the appellants’ claim was not time barred. The Oklahoma Supreme Court reversed that judgment and affirmed the judgment of the trial court after finding that “[t]he question for decision is whether the Oklahoma statutory procedure . . . complies with . . . due process of law.” 502 P. 2d 1265, 1266 (1972) (emphasis added). Whether appellees adequately raised the statute of limitations ground in objecting to the Court of Appeals judgment, we do not know. What we do know is that the Oklahoma Supreme Court quieted title in appellees by rejecting appellants’ constitutional claim. Either because the issue was not *104properly before the court or because decision on it was not necessary, the statute of limitations issue was not reached.
What faces this Court is thus a decision quieting title in appellees by rejecting appellants’ federal constitutional claim. As the majority notes, this was the only issue addressed by the parties in the Jurisdictional Statement and the responsive papers filed with this Court. When a constitutional adjudication is not the only basis on which a state court judgment rests, a review of that adjudication by this Court would be advisory since the judgment would rest on its independent grounds regardless of the outcome of our review. But the only issue before us in this case is a constitutional one since the only basis for the reversal below is the rejection of appellants’ constitutional claim. When a decision rests only on a constitutional determination, a review of that determination is dispositive of the correctness of the decision and is thus not advisory. I would therefore face the constitutional claim at this point.