25 U.S.C. § 347 — Limitations of actions for lands patented in severalty under treaties

This section applies when someone sues in a state or federal court to get back land, or its rents or profits, from a patent holder, that patent holder's heirs, or anyone claiming through them. It applies specifically to land that was "patented in severalty" — given as an individual land title, rather than shared tribal ownership — to a member of an Indian tribe under a treaty between that tribe and the United States, where the Secretary of the Interior has approved the deed to that land. In these lawsuits, the same statute of limitations — the state law setting a deadline for filing suit — applies as it would to any other land dispute in that state. If the lawsuit is not filed within that state's deadline, that late filing is a complete defense. This is true even though the land was originally patented to a tribal member rather than to someone else.