Finding #1220 corrects a dangerous list-entry trap. The 1929 congressional hearing’s bare Jemmison v. Kennedy, 55 Hun 47, looks like another lease case. The original four-page opinion — Jesse Jemmison v. Nathaniel Kennedy (Fifth Department, December 1889) — is an individual-versus-individual assault suit about counsel choice.
A jury found for plaintiff Jesse Jemmison. Defendant’s only preserved exception was refusal to nonsuit because Jemmison used attorneys other than the state-appointed attorney for the Seneca Nation. Justice Dwight gave two independent reasons the objection failed: capacity must be pleaded (it wasn’t), and on the merits the 1845 Nation-attorney statute was not an exclusive bar under the later 1847 act, chapter 365, section 14, which allowed one Seneca to sue another in New York court on a demand exceeding the Peacemakers’ $100 jurisdiction “in the same manner and with the like effect as between white citizens.”
Separations: individual tort/counsel ≠ Nation land title; ≠ all reservation leases; ≠ general right to litigate any amount without Peacemakers. Source: 1889-jemmison-kennedy-seneca-individual-counsel.
sol1220counselnot-lease