Home › Case briefs › Constitutional Law

De Geofroy v. Riggs

Supreme Court of the United States · Constitutional Law

Constitutional LawTreaty PowerAliens and PropertyInheritancetreaty powersupremacyalienageinheritance

Facts

The complainants were citizens and residents of France, and one complainant's birth in China did not alter his French citizenship because his father was French and serving as France's minister plenipotentiary to China. Their uncle, a citizen of the United States and resident of the District of Columbia, died seized of real estate in the District. The question was whether the complainants, as French citizens, could inherit that District property by descent. They relied on Article 7 of the 1853 convention between the United States and France and on the implications of the 1887 Act concerning alien ownership of real estate in the Territories and the District of Columbia.

Issue

Can citizens of France take land in the District of Columbia by descent from a citizen of the United States? More specifically, did Article 7 of the 1853 convention between the United States and France remove the disability of alienage so that French citizens could inherit real property in the District of Columbia?

Rule

The treaty power extends to all proper subjects of negotiation between the United States and foreign nations, including the protection, transfer, devise, and inheritance of property owned by citizens of one country in another. Treaties are part of the supreme law of the land and control conflicting state or local common-law and statutory rules. In construing treaties, courts should give effect to all provisions, construe them liberally to promote equality and reciprocity, and prefer a construction favorable to rights claimed under the treaty when the treaty reasonably admits of two constructions.

🔒

See the holding & full analysis

Create a free KwikCourt account to unlock the rest of this brief — and practice the case.

The court's holding and reasoning
Doctrine tests, pitfalls & exam hypotheticals
10 practice questions + 4 AI-graded essays on this case

Free sample · practice this case

Test yourself

One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

Luc Martin, a citizen of Belgium living in Brussels, claims a parcel of land in San Juan, Puerto Rico, that passed to him under his aunt's will. A federal territorial statute would otherwise bar noncitizens from taking title by devise, but a ratified treaty between the United States and Belgium provides that each nation's citizens may hold, transfer, devise, and inherit property in the other's territory on the same terms as local citizens where local legislation permits aliens to hold real estate.

If the territorial government argues that the treaty is invalid because inheritance of land is purely a local property matter outside the treaty power, what is the strongest response?

Explanation. The majority opinion states that the treaty power extends to all proper subjects of negotiation between nations, and specifically identifies protection, transfer, devise, and inheritance of property as fitting subjects of treaty regulation. Because the subject is proper for negotiation, the objection that land inheritance is purely local fails. (Derived from De Geofroy v. Riggs (n.d.).)