Shade v. Downing et al. (333 U.S. 586)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided April 5, 1948 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 333 U.S. 586 · 68 S. Ct. 702
- Docket
- No. 448
- Argued
- February 11, 1948
- Decided
- April 5, 1948
- Term
- October Term 1947
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Douglas
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Certification to/from a lower court
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Vinson, Justice Burton, Justice Douglas (wrote), Justice Black, Justice Rutledge, Justice Murphy
- Dissenting
- Justice R. H. Jackson (wrote), Justice Frankfurter (wrote), Justice Reed (wrote)
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Douglas delivered the opinion of the Court. The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, acting under Judicial Code § 239, 28 U. S. C. § 346, has certified the following question for our determination: “(1) Is the United States a necessary party to a proceeding to determine the heirship of a deceased citizen allottee of the Five Civilized Tribes brought under the Act of June 19 [14], 1918, 40 Stat. 606?” On January 4, 1935, the County Court of Cherokee County, Oklahoma, decreed that the sole and only heirs of Thompson Downing, a full-blood Cherokee, were his three daughters, the appellees below. Sometime thereafter Peggy Shade brought this suit in an Oklahoma court to claim, as the only heir of Downing’s second wife, an undivided one-fourth interest in Downing’s allotted lands. She attacked the 1935 decree on the ground, among others, that no notice of the pendency of the heirship proceedings had been served on the Superintendent for the Five Civilized Tribes under the Act of April 12, 1926, 44 Stat. 239, 240-241. Notice of the pendency of the present action was duly served upon the Superintendent and on his motion the cause was removed to the District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma. Judgment was entered for defendants on June 6, 1945, the court holding that the United States was not a necessary party to the 1935 heirship proceedings, and that…
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