This case involved a bankruptcy trustee's challenge to General Motors Acceptance Corporation's claimed security interest in a vehicle purchased by the bankrupt in New York, where the lien was noted on a New York certificate of title. After the bankrupt moved to Oklahoma and obtained an Oklahoma title without surrendering the New York one, GMAC did not file any financing statements in Oklahoma. The court affirmed the bankruptcy judge's ruling that the New York notation did not maintain a perfected security interest under Oklahoma's version of the UCC, specifically 12A O.S. § 9-103(3) and (4), because issuance of the Oklahoma title required compliance with Oklahoma perfection rules, which had not occurred by the time of bankruptcy. The decision turned on the principle that only one certificate of title controls perfection and that the creditor must follow the law of the new state once a local title is issued.
In Hunt v. Democratic Party of Oklahoma, registered Democratic voters and some elected state legislators sued the state Democratic Party, alleging that its geographically based delegate and central committee structure violated the one-person, one-vote principle and diluted urban (including Black) voters' influence in party affairs and nominations. The court dismissed the action without prejudice, holding that it lacked jurisdiction and that the complaint failed to state a claim under the Fourteenth Amendment. The opinion reasoned that Oklahoma political parties are voluntary organizations governed by state statutes that were not challenged as unconstitutional, that no present controversy or imminent violation existed to create federal jurisdiction, and that federal courts should abstain absent a ripe dispute rather than intervene in internal party matters.
The case centered on a dispute over title to real property in Tulsa County, Oklahoma, where the plaintiff, invoking a 1947 federal statute restricting alienation of inherited land by members of the Five Civilized Tribes, sought to cancel her 1965 deed and subsequent conveyances and to eject the defendants in possession. The defendants counterclaimed to quiet their titles derived from that deed. Following a trial on the merits with evidence that differed from earlier preliminary injunction proceedings, the court ruled for the defendants, quieting their titles to the property and directing the trustee to deliver possession to them while denying the plaintiff's claims. The decision rested on findings that the statutory approval requirements did not invalidate the chain of title under the facts presented and that no equitable adjustment favoring the plaintiff was warranted.
This case involved an indictment against Phillips Petroleum Company and executives for violations of 26 U.S.C. § 7206, charging that they willfully omitted commission income from Triton Shipping and technical service fee income from Cochin Refineries on corporate tax returns for 1969-1971. Defendants moved to dismiss the indictment for grand jury abuse, alleging prosecutors withheld exculpatory evening testimony from witness James Akright, which attributed the omissions to carelessness rather than bad intent and was recorded as part of the grand jury record. The court found this withholding an abuse because the evidence directly bore on the required element of willful intent under the tax statutes and was not presented to the grand jurors despite being taken outside their presence. It therefore dismissed the indictment, while declining to reach a separate claim of misuse as an open-ended grand jury.
The case involved a motion by Phillips Petroleum Company and its officers to dismiss Count I of a 1976 indictment charging a conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 371 to defraud the IRS by concealing over $2.6 million in funds through Swiss accounts and unreported corporate payments from 1962 to 1973. The defendants argued that the charge breached a 1973 plea agreement reached with the Watergate Special Prosecutor, under which Phillips and Keeler pled guilty to misdemeanor violations of 18 U.S.C. § 610 for illegal campaign contributions in exchange for no further Title 18 prosecutions based on the voluntarily disclosed conduct. The court found that the government was not completely ignorant of the broader conspiracy at the time of the agreement and that the plea deal was intended to be fully dispositive of all such Title 18 charges, similar to the ruling in United States v. Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co. The court therefore concluded that the prosecution of Count I violated the agreement and ordered its dismissal, while leaving Title 26 tax counts intact.
The case involves a plaintiff's flood insurance claim initially filed in Oklahoma state court, which the defendants sought to remove to federal court under 42 U.S.C. § 4053, asserting exclusive federal jurisdiction. The court granted the plaintiff's motion to remand the case back to state court. The reasoning is that the statute provides for federal jurisdiction but does not make it exclusive, as confirmed by the legislative history which explicitly allows state court remedies, and the regulation attempting to limit jurisdiction to federal courts only exceeds the statutory authority.
