This suit is based, as its ultimate foundation, on an Act of Congress of May 29, 1908, c. 216, § 5, 35 Stat. 444, 445, which provides as follows:
'That the Court of Claims is hereby authorized and directed to hear and adjudicate the claims against the Choctaw Nation of Samuel Garland, deceased, and to render judgment thereon in such amounts, if any, as may appear to be equitably due. Said judgment, if any, in favor of the heirs of Garland shall be paid out of any funds in the treasury of the United States belonging to the Choctaw Nation, said judgment to be rendered on the principle of quantum meruit for services rendered and expenses incurred. Notice of said suit shall be served on the governor of the Choctaw Nation, and the Attorney General of the United States shall appear and defend in said suit on behalf of said Nation.'
The case is not easily stated, though simple in ultimate resolution. It turns upon the relation of Samuel Garland and his right to compensation as one of the delegation of the Choctaw Nation to procure for the Nation a recognition and payment of money due from the United States in settlement of or in payment for lands east of the Mississippi river ceded to the United States under certain treaties.
The case as made by the petition is this: Samuel Garland was a member of the Choctaw Tribe of Indians, and in 1853 he, with four others, were created a delegation and authorized to settle all unsettled business between the Choctaw Nation and the United States. In 1855 the Chiefs of the Nation agreed to pay the delegation, naming them, 20 per cent. upon all the claims arising to the Nation or individuals for their services in negotiating the treaty and for other services which were to be rendered thereafter in Washington.
In pursuance of this authority they entered into negotiations with the United States for settlement of the controversies concerning what, if anything, was due on account of matters growing out of certain treaties (they are set out in the petition) and for the payment for lands ceded to the United States by the Choctaws.
The result was the direction by an Act of Congress (1888; 25 Stat. 239) of the payment to the Choctaw Nation of the sum of $2,858,798.62 in satisfaction of a judgment of the Court of Claims in favor of the Nation.
On February 25, 1888, the Nation, on account of the death of Samuel Garland, and for the purpose of paying his estate and the other members of the delegation, appointed Campbell Le Flore and Edmund McCurtain agents of the Nation to make requisition upon the United States for the amount due Garland and the other delegates for the services rendered the Nation, and for moneys expended by them. Twenty per cent. of the amount appropriated by Congress to pay the judgment of the Court of Claims was the amount fixed to be paid.
The appointment of Le Flore and McCurtain was without the consent of Garland's estate or the consent of his heirs.
Le Flore and McCurtain collected from the United States $638,919.43, the same being 20 per cent. of the judgment of the Court of Claims, and were charged with the duty of distributing the same equally.
In 1889 they paid to the heirs of Garland $43,943.20, but refused to pay the balance due, amounting to $115,786.65.
The Nation has never denied the indebtedness to the estate of Garland, but recognized it by an act passed by its General Council in 1897, and authorized its payment by warrants issued by the national auditor.
The act was vetoed, for the reason that it would exhaust the available funds in the treasury of the Nation and force the closing of the Choctaw schools. The estate, having no power to sue the Nation, could not do so until authorized by an act of Congress.
The petition sets forth the respective interests of the heirs of Garland.
The Court of Claims found some of these facts, but found other facts, and concluded from them that the contract of the Nation was with the delegates as a body, and that the Nation was not responsible for any failure on the part of Le Flore to pay the estate of Garland all that was due Garland. In other words, the court held that Le Flore and McCurtain were not the "agents' of the Choctaw Nation for whose misapplication of the fund, if they did misapply it, the Nation was liable,' but that they were, when dealt with, 'the delegation, the successors of the original delegation, standing in such relation to the Nation and to other members of the delegation or their beneficiaries that the payment made to them, as it was made, is to be held an acquittance of the Nation.'