New York ex rel. Cutler v. Dibble

New York ex rel. Cutler v. Dibble
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided December 30, 1858
Full case name	People of State of New York ex rel. Asa Cutler, John Underhill, and Arza Underhill v. Edgar C. Dibble, County Judge of Genesee County
Citations	62 U.S. 366 (more) 21 How. 366, 16 L. Ed. 149; 1858 U.S. LEXIS 653
Case history
Prior	18 Barb. 412 (N.Y. Sup. Gen. Term 1854), aff'd,16 N.Y. (2 E.P. Smith) 203 (1854)
Holding
The New York nonintercourse act does not violate the Indian Commerce Clause, the federal Nonintercourse Act or the Treaty of Buffalo Creek
Court membership
Chief Justice Roger B. Taney Associate Justices John McLean · James M. Wayne John Catron · Peter V. Daniel Samuel Nelson · Robert C. Grier John A. Campbell · Nathan Clifford
Case opinion
Majority	Grier
Laws applied
U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 3; Nonintercourse Act; Treaty of Buffalo Creek

New York ex rel. Cutler v. Dibble, 62 U.S. (21 How.) 366 (1858), was a companion case to the more well-known Fellows v. Blacksmith (1857). At the time Fellows was decided, this case had reached the U.S. Supreme Court but had not yet been argued.^[1]

Members of the Seneca tribe had obtained a writ from the New York courts, under New York's state nonintercourse act, expelling the Ogden Land Company and their grantees. The defendants, before the Court, unsuccessfully challenged the state statute under the Indian Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, the federal Nonintercourse Act and the Treaty of Buffalo Creek between the federal government and the Senecas. Because the Senecas relied on state law, and the defendants relied on federal law, the case is essentially the inverse of the litigation of aboriginal title in the United States over the next 150 years.