Some canonical Supreme Court land rulings were staged friendly suits, not real disputes

Evidence

Mapping the United Companies’ claims alongside M’Intosh’s purchases, as enumerated in the district court records, shows that the litigants’ land claims did not overlap. Hence, there was no real ‘case or controversy,’ and M’Intosh, like another leading early Supreme Court land case, Fletcher v. Peck, appears to have been a sham. … M’Intosh did not contest a single fact alleged in the complaint, jurisdictional or otherwise. Perhaps he participated in framing the complaint, which became the stipulated facts of the case. Neither the district court nor the Supreme Court questioned any of these facts. Everyone involved, it seems, wanted a decision on the legal question of the validity of private purchases from the Native Americans. — Wikipedia contributors, Johnson v. McIntosh, 27

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: ‘America’s Most Cited Land Case Was a Setup’ — how collusive test cases manufacture constitutional law, from Fletcher v. Peck to modern shadow-docket suits.
• XREF: Connects to Marbury v. Madison and the broader literature on collusive test cases shaping doctrine.