Lipscomb v. Columbus Municipal Separate School District

OPINION

SENTER, Senior District Judge.

Plaintiff J. Randolph Lipscomb initiated this class action seeking a declaration as to the validity of certain leases of Mississippi sixteenth section land.

In 1816, the United States purchased for $130,000 from the Chickasaw Nation title to land that now comprises parts of northern Alabama and Mississippi. In 1817, following a pattern that had been in place since before the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, see Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 268-69, 106 S.Ct. 2932, 92 L.Ed.2d 209 (1986), Congress authorized the survey and sale of all these lands,…