## Facts

- Choctaw allottees received land under an 1898 federal allotment law that restricted alienation and made the allotments nontaxable while title remained in the original allottee (up to 21 years).
- After Oklahoma statehood, county officials assessed and collected ad valorem taxes on the allotments following a 1908 federal act removing some alienation restrictions and stating certain lands would be taxable.
- The allottees maintained that the federal tax exemption was a vested property right protected by the Constitution and could not be eliminated.
- Litigation over the exemption proceeded, and the U.S. Supreme Court had held in related litigation that the exemption was a vested right that could not constitutionally be taken away.
- Despite knowledge of the exemption dispute, Love County officials demanded payment and threatened advertisement and sale for nonpayment; similarly situated property had been advertised and sold.
- Oklahoma law imposed an 18% penalty for delinquent taxes, increasing the pressure to pay.
- The allottees paid the taxes under protest to avoid penalties and threatened sale; the county later remitted some of the tax proceeds to the state and other municipalities.
- The allottees filed a claim with the county commissioners seeking repayment of taxes allegedly coercively collected; the claim was denied.

## Issues

1. Whether the U.S. Supreme Court could review a state-court judgment that purported to rest on state-law grounds when its effect was to deny a federal right.
2. Whether payment of the challenged taxes was voluntary (barring recovery) or made under compulsion.
3. Whether the county had a duty to refund illegally collected taxes absent explicit state statutory refund authority and despite having distributed part of the proceeds to other governmental entities.

## Decision

- The Court held it had jurisdiction because the state-court judgment effectively denied a federal right and could not be insulated from review by reliance on nonfederal grounds that were plainly untenable.
- The Court held the payments were made under compulsion because the taxpayers faced threatened sale of their lands and heavy statutory penalties, and such threats had been carried out in other cases.
- The Court held the county was required to refund the full amount of the illegal taxes.
- The Court rejected the county’s defense that it lacked statutory authority to refund and that it had already paid over portions of the taxes to the state and other municipalities.
- The Oklahoma Supreme Court’s judgment was reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings consistent with the opinion.

## Legal Principles

- U.S. Supreme Court review is available when a state-court judgment’s effect is to deny a federal right; review cannot be defeated by labeling the disposition as resting on state-law grounds that are plainly untenable.
- Federally conferred tax exemptions for Indian allotments can constitute vested property rights protected from unconstitutional abrogation.
- Taxes paid under threat of statutory penalties and sale of property are not voluntary; restitution is available for illegal exactions made under compulsion.
- A local government that coercively collects an unlawful tax must restore the amounts collected even without express refund legislation and even if it has distributed the proceeds to other public entities.

## Conclusion

The Court required Love County to repay taxes unlawfully exacted from federally exempt Indian allotments, holding that the payments were compelled and that neither untenable state-law characterizations nor the county’s distribution of proceeds could defeat federal rights or the duty to refund.


Ward v. Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs of Love Cnty., 253 U.S. 17 (1920)