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12 Okla. 485

71 P 628

Bass v. Smith

Supreme Court of Oklahoma

Decided February 5, 1903

Supreme Court of Oklahoma · decided 1903-02-05

Error from the District Court of Grant County; before James K. Beauchamp, Trial Judge. STATEMENT OF FACTS. This was an action brought in the district court of Grant county by Sarah C. Bass against the heirs at law and next of kin of David W. Smith, deceased, to compel the conveyance of a certain tract of land to the plaintiff by virtue, of a certain oral agreement entered into between David W. Smith and the plaintiff in error on the-°day of October 1895.

Relies on McMullen v. Hoffman · Meguire v. Corwine · Garst v. Love Word

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1903-02-05

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently January 1936

12 state decisions

401903191019201930decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1 Opinion of the court by

Hainer, J.:

¶2 The sole question presented by the record is the validity of the contract entered into between the plaintiff, Sarah C. Bass, and the decedent, David W. Smith. Was the contract a valid one? Can such a contract be enforced? We think these questions must be answered in the negative. Section 24 of the organic act of this territory provides as follows:

“That it shall be unlawful for any person, for himself or any company, association, or corporation, to directly or indirectly procure any person to settle upon any lands open to settlement in the Territory of Oklahoma, with intent thereafter of acquiring title thereto; and any title thus acquired shall be void; and the parties to such fraudulent settlement shall severally be guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be punished upon indictment, by imprisonment not exceeding-twelve months, or by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court.”

¶3 The contract which is attempted to be enforced in this action is not only in violation of, the organic act of this territory, which denounces such an act as a crime, but it is also' in violation, of the laws of the United States. It was therefore illegal. And'the law seems to be now well settled that no action, either at law or in equity, can be maintained on a contract that is forbidden by law. The sound policy of the law seems to be to leave the parties in all such eases without *488 a remedy, since the courts will not lend their aid to a party who bases his action on a contract in violation of the organic law, or the statute, or upon an act that is immoral, or is in contravention of sound public policy. No legal right can arise from such a source. (Garst v. Love, 6 Okla. 46; Light v. Conover, 10 Okla. 732; Trist v. Child, 12 Wall. 441; Meguire v. Corwine, 101 U. S. 108; McMulleh v. Hoffman, 174 U. S. 639.)

¶4 However, the contract in the case at bar is to be distinguished from those contracts which are merely-void from excess of power, or want of compliance in some formal matter or which are defective in other essentials. It follows that the courts will not enforce the contract sued on, or permit a party to recover damages on account of the alleged breach thereof, or permit the party to recover the money advanced to carry into effect such an illegal transaction.

¶5 The judgment of the district court of Grant county was right, and is, therefore, affirmed, at the costs of the plaintiff in error.

Beauchamp, J., who presided in the court below, not sitting; Irwin, J., absent; all the other Justices concurring.
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