Work v. United States (262 U.S. 200)

The relator, the McAlester-Edwards Coal Company, filed a petition in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, asking for a writ of mandamus to require the Secretary of the Interior and the Governor of the Chickasaw Nation and the Principal Chief of the Choctaw Nation to accept $10,360.06, the balance of the purchase price of $12,651.82 ($2,291.76 having already been tendered and accepted) tendered by the coal company in payment for certain surface lands to which under the Act of Congress of February 8, 1918 (40 Stat. 433, c. 12, § 4), it claimed a preferential right of purchase, and to require the Governor of the Chickasaw Nation and the Principal Chief of the Choctaw Nation to issue a patent to the coal company for the same and the Secretary of the Interior to approve it.

The answer of the defendants below admitted all the material facts alleged in the petition, but denied the right of the coal company to the mandamus on the ground that the construction put upon the act of 1918 by the Secretary of the Interior, in the exercise of the discretion vested in him by the statute, did not give to the relator, the coal company, the preferential right asserted. The Supreme Court of the District overruled a demurrer to the answer, and, the relator not pleading further, the petition was dismissed. On review in the Court of Appeals, the judgment of the District Supreme Court was reversed on the ground that the demurrer should have been sustained and the writ asked for should have issued. The cause was remanded to have the writ issue The coal company is owner by assignment of a lease approved by the Secretary of the Interior of coal lands in Pittsburg county, Oklahoma, belonging to the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, executed in July, 1899, and running for 30 years. This lease permitted the lessee to use the surface of the land covered by the lease for the purpose of developing its coal mine. The Act of February 19, 1912, (37 Stat. 67, c. 46), authorized the Secretary of the Interior to sell the surface leased and unleased of the segregated mineral land of the Choctaws and Chickasaws, reserved under previous laws, to include the entire estate of the Indians therein except the coal and asphalt reserved. The Secretary was required in the first section, quoted in the margin, to classify and have appraised the surface so to be sold. The second section, also quoted in the margin, gave a perferential right for 60 days to any coal or asphalt lessee to purchase at the appraised value, the surface of the land covered by his mining lease, not exceeding 5 per cent. of the whole surface, which the Secretary might extend to 10 per cent., upon waiver of right by the lessee to use any more of the surface, but allowed the Secretary in case of a lessee's failing to purchase to reserve to him as much of the surface as the Secretary might deem proper for his mining used and development.

Pursuant to this act, the Secretary classified and appraised the surface of the land which included that covered by the lease of the coal company. The coa company, however, did not avail itself of the right to purchase but under the authority of the latter part of the section accepted a reservation by the Secretary of a certain part of the surface for its mining operations.

The purpose of the Act of February 8, 1918 (40 Stat. 433), already referred to, is shown by its title 'An act providing for the sale of the coal and asphalt deposits in the segregated mineral land in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations Oklahoma.' Before offering the coal and asphalt deposits for sale, the Secretary was to cause them to be appraised, under such regulations as he should prescribe. All deposits sold were to be subject to the rights of existing lessees, and section 4 contained a provision that any lessee of mining rights should have the preferential right to buy them at the highest price offered for them at public auction-at not less than the appraisement-and that after the appraisement of the mining rights and within 90 days thereof such lessee should have the preferential right to buy the surface rights reserved to him by the Secretary as such lessee 'at the appraised value.'

The relator bought the mining rights and then within due time undertook to exercise its preferential right to buy the surface rights reserved to it by the Secretary under the Act of 1912, and made a payment on account of $2,291.76, on the basis of the appraisement under the Act of 1912, which was accepted by the Superintendent of the Five Civilized Tribes and approved by the Secretary of the Interior, and retained for fourteen months. When this became known to the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, their representatives protested and insisted that there must be a new appraisement under the Act of 1918. There was a hearing before the Secretary who reversed his first ruling and held that the relator was entitled to purchase such surface lands only under an appraisement made subsequently to the Act of 1918, and that the money paid under the appraisement of 1912 should be returned to the relator. An appraisement was then ordered by the Secretary under regulations issued by him, at which the relator had sought to exercise a preferential right was fixed at $20,482.60, instead of $9,050.53, whic had been the appraisement under the Act of 1912.

The Attorney General and Mr. H. L. Underwood, of Washington, D. C., for plaintiffs in error.

Messrs. George M. Porter, of McAlester, Okl., and Conrad H. Syme, of Washington, D. C., for defendant in error.

Mr. Chief Justice TAFT, after stating the case as above, delivered the opinion of the Court.