25 U.S.C. § 347
Section 347 · Limitations of actions for lands patented in severalty under treaties
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 7 court decisions — leading case Capoeman v. United States (1971)
Most recently applied in Wardle v. Northwest Investment Co. (September 1987)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
In all actions brought in any State court or United States court by any patentee, his heirs, grantees, or any person claiming under such patentee, for the possession or rents or profits of lands patented in severalty to the members of any tribe of Indians under any treaty between it and the United States of America, where a deed has been approved by the Secretary of the Interior to the land sought to be recovered, the statutes of limitations of the States in which said land is situate shall be held to apply, and it shall be a complete defense to such action that the same has not been brought within the time prescribed by the statutes of said State the same as if such action had been brought for the recovery of land patented to others than members of any tribe of Indians.