25 U.S.C. § 378
Section 378 · Partition of allotment among heirs; patents
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case 21 Cl. Ct. 176 - Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation v. United States (1990)
Most recently applied in 21 Cl. Ct. 176 - Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation v. United States (July 1990)
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.
If the Secretary of the Interior shall find that any inherited trust allotment or allotments are capable of partition to the advantage of the heirs, he may cause such lands to be partitioned among them, regardless of their competency, patents in fee to be issued to the competent heirs for their shares and trust patents to be issued to the incompetent heirs for the lands respectively or jointly set apart to them, the trust period to terminate in accordance with the terms of the original patent or order of extension of the trust period set out in said patent.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Cross References
Certain lands not to be allotted in severalty to any Indian, see section 461 of this title.