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On June 2, 2026, mctlaw partner Jeffrey Nelson appeared on Native America Calling, a nationally syndicated radio program, to talk about a class action lawsuit the firm filed on behalf of thousands of Native landowners in Oklahoma. The case, Tyson v. United States, claims the federal government failed to ensure that members of Oklahoma’s Five Tribes received income they were owed from oil and gas development on their allotted lands.
Joining Nelson on the program were two of the case’s named plaintiffs, Chickasaw sisters Hazel James and Peggy Immohotichey. Their story is a good example of how this problem plays out for real families.
One Family’s Search for Answers About Oil and Gas Income on Their Oklahoma Allotment
Peggy spent 35 years working for Indian Health Service, retiring as a registered nurse. After the death of her husband, Dwight, she became the executor of his estate and started working through the records connected to their family’s allotted land. What she found was a tangle of documents spread across multiple agencies and oil companies, with no clear way to determine what had been produced, what had been paid, and what might still be owed.
“I feel like transparency builds trust,” Peggy said on the program, “and trust is something that every landowner deserves.”
Her sister Hazel described the moment she realized how many other people were dealing with the same thing. “I guess more like awestruck that there would be that many people involved in something like this,” she said.
The sisters learned about mctlaw after a family member saw Jeffrey Nelson discussing the case in the news. Their situation matched what he had been describing. They joined the lawsuit, and they are now two of an estimated 10,000 tribal citizens who may be part of the class.
Representing Oklahoma’s Native Landowners: mctlaw and the Federal Oil and Gas Lease Class Action
mctlaw began looking into this issue about four years ago after a Choctaw family reached out, convinced they were not receiving what they were owed from oil and gas activity on their allotment. The more the firm dug in, the clearer it became that this was not an isolated situation. Families from all of the Five Tribes (Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee, Seminole, and Cherokee Nations) in Eastern Oklahoma were dealing with the same confusion and the same lack of accountability.
Nelson leads mctlaw‘s Indian Law Practice Group and has been building this case with those families in mind. As he explained on the program, the lawsuit is asking the court to hold the federal government accountable for its trust duty to these landowners, many of whom have never received a clear accounting of what is owed to them.
If you are a member of one of Oklahoma’s Five Tribes and have questions about income from oil or gas activity on allotted land, contact mctlaw by filling out the form below for a free consultation.
Listen to the entire interview
Click on the play button below to listen to the entire interview. It begins at 23 minutes and you can scroll directly to that time on the player.
