## Facts

- In 1991, Madge Nutongla Garcia, a Hopi resident of the village of Hotevilla, died without leaving a written will.
- Madge owned three village structures: a rock house, an addition to the rock house, and an orchard house.
- Under traditional Hopi intestacy law, houses located in the decedent’s village pass to the decedent’s eldest daughter when there is no will.
- Madge’s children—Marilyn Nutongla Sanchez (eldest daughter) and her brothers Walter Garcia and Dell Garcia—disagreed about who should receive the structures.
- The siblings asked a clan relative, Homer Koiyayumptewa, to resolve the dispute using a traditional clan-relative process.
- After hearing the parties, Koiyayumptewa determined that Madge had made an oral will and distributed the property accordingly: the rock house to Sanchez, the addition to Walter, and the orchard house to Dell.
- The siblings initially agreed with, and accepted, Koiyayumptewa’s resolution.
- Later, Sanchez repudiated the distribution and asserted that Madge died intestate; Sanchez claimed that, as eldest daughter, she was entitled to all three structures under traditional intestacy rules.
- Sanchez presented the dispute to the Hotevilla Village Board of Directors; the Board was unable to resolve it and waived its authority to determine inheritance under the Hopi Constitution.
- Sanchez then filed an intestacy claim in Hopi Tribal Court seeking distribution of the estate to her.
- The Tribal Court reaffirmed the clan relative’s finding of an oral will and the resulting distribution.
- Sanchez appealed to the Appellate Court of the Hopi Tribe.

## Issues

1. Whether the Hopi courts may reconsider and redistribute an estate when the heirs previously submitted the dispute to a clan relative and accepted that resolution.
2. Whether a clan-relative distribution, reached after hearing the parties and accepted by them, is binding so that a later intestacy petition should be rejected.
3. Whether the estate should be distributed under traditional intestacy rules favoring the eldest daughter, or under an oral-will distribution determined through the clan-relative process.

## Decision

- The Hopi Court of Appeals affirmed the Tribal Court.
- The court refused to disturb the clan-relative distribution after the parties voluntarily used that process and initially accepted its result.
- The distribution remained: rock house to Sanchez, addition to Walter Garcia, and orchard house to Dell Garcia.

## Legal Principles

- When parties voluntarily select a clan relative to decide an inheritance dispute, participate in that process, and accept the outcome, Hopi courts will treat the resulting distribution as final rather than retrying the merits in a later court action.
- A traditional determination that the decedent made an oral will can control distribution of village structures and defeat a later claim that the decedent died intestate.
- Even when a village authority waives its inheritance authority and a matter proceeds in Tribal Court, the courts may decline to reallocate property already distributed through an accepted traditional resolution.

## Conclusion

Nutongla Sanchez v. Garcia holds that, where heirs asked a clan relative to resolve an inheritance dispute and initially accepted the oral-will distribution, the Hopi courts will not reopen the matter to award the entire estate under intestacy rules; the appellate court therefore affirmed the Tribal Court and left the clan-relative distribution in place.


Nutongla Sanchez v. Garcia, Case No. 98AP000014 (1999)