Per Curiam.
In this case we noted probable jurisdiction, 411 U. S. 915 (1973), in order to consider whether the published notice provisions of the then-applicable Oklahoma tax-sale statutes, Okla. Stat., Tit. 68, §§ 382 and 432b (1951), comported with due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. See Mullane v. Central Han over Bank & Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306 (1950). This was the only issue addressed by the appellate courts of Oklahoma and by the parties in the Jurisdictional Statement and the papers responsive thereto filed with this Court.
After oral argument and upon our review of the record, it now appears that there might have been an independent and, possibly, an unchallenged ground for the judgment of the state trial court, viz., the running of the Oklahoma period of limitation for adverse claims. If that should prove to be the case, any decision by this Court would be advisory and beyond our jurisdiction. Murdock v. City of Memphis, 20 Wall. 590, 636 (1875).
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma is therefore vacated and the case is remanded to that court to consider whether the appellants preserved the right to challenge the 'trial court’s determination that the State’s statute of limitations is a bar to their mineral rights claim, and, if so, whether, under state law, the statute of limitations independently bars appellants’ claim, irrespective of the constitutional adequacy of the tax-sale notice provisions of §§ 382 and 432b. Cf. Walker v. Hoffman, 405 P. 2d 57 (Okla. 1965).
It is so ordered.
The ad valorem taxes in question were for the year 1952. The original tax sale took place in November 1953 and the resale in May 1956. Okla. Stat., Tit. 68, §§ 383 and 432 (1951). The statutes cited (§§ 382, 383, 432, and 432b) were repealed by Okla. Sess. Laws 1965, c. 501, § 3, and replaced by corresponding provisions of the State’s present Ad Valorem Tax Code, namely, Okla. Stat. Ann., Tit. 68, §§24312, 24313, 24329, and 24331 (1966).
See 502 P. 2d 1265 (1972). The earlier opinion of the Oklahoma Court of Appeals, Division 2, is not reported; it is reproduced in the Jurisdictional Statement, App. A, p. vii.
The trial court’s judgment read in part as follows:
“ (2) The Court Further Finds, Orders, Adjudges and Decrees that from the date of the recording of said resale tax deed, on June 6, 1956 ... said Grantees therein, the Cross-Petitioners, R. W. Garrett and R. H. Vaughn, have been in the open, continuous, visible, notorious, exclusive and hostile possession of said lands and premises, receiving all of the rents, profits and income therefrom, and that said contesting substituted party defendants, are further forever barred and precluded by the statute of limitations, from seeking to assert the invalidity of said resale tax deed, as provided by 12 O. S. 1961, Sec. 93 (3) and (6).” Jurisdictional Statement, App. B, p. xvii.
Okla. Stat. Ann., Tit. 12, §93 (Supp. 1973-1974), reads:
§ 93. Limitation of real actions. — “Actions for the recovery of real property, or for the determination of any adverse right or interest therein, can only be brought within the periods hereinafter prescribed, after the cause of action shall have accrued, and at no other time thereafter:
“(3) An action for the recovery of real property sold for taxes, within five (5) years after the date of the recording of the tax deed . . . provided, nothing herein shall be construed as reviving any cause of action for recovery of real property heretofore barred nor as divesting any interest acquired by adverse possession prior to the effective date hereof.
“(6) Numbered paragraphs 1, 2, and 3 shall be fully operative regardless of whether the deed or judgment or the precedent -action or proceeding upon which such deed or judgment is based is void or voidable in whole or in part, for any reason, jurisdictional or otherwise; provided that this paragraph shall not be applied so as to bar causes of action which have heretofore accrued, until the expiration of one (1) year from and after its effective date.”
Whether the alleged lack of constitutionally valid notice would preclude the running of the statute of limitations for an adverse land claim is a question that has not been presented to this Court or to the Oklahoma courts below. Cf. Shroeder v. City of New York, 371 U. S. 208, 213-214 (1962). We intimate no view on this issue.
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine whether the decision of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed was itself liberal or conservative. In the context of issues pertaining to criminal procedure, civil rights, First Amendment, due process, privacy, and attorneys, consider liberal to be pro-person accused or convicted of crime, or denied a jury trial, pro-civil liberties or civil rights claimant, especially those exercising less protected civil rights (e.g., homosexuality), pro-child or juvenile, pro-indigent pro-Indian, pro-affirmative action, pro-neutrality in establishment clause cases, pro-female in abortion, pro-underdog, anti-slavery, incorporation of foreign territories anti-government in the context of due process, except for takings clause cases where a pro-government, anti-owner vote is considered liberal except in criminal forfeiture cases or those where the taking is pro-business violation of due process by exercising jurisdiction over nonresident, pro-attorney or governmental official in non-liability cases, pro-accountability and/or anti-corruption in campaign spending pro-privacy vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment where the privacy invaded is that of mental incompetents, pro-disclosure in Freedom of Information Act issues except for employment and student records. In the context of issues pertaining to unions and economic activity, consider liberal to be pro-union except in union antitrust where liberal = pro-competition, pro-government, anti-business anti-employer, pro-competition, pro-injured person, pro-indigent, pro-small business vis-a-vis large business pro-state/anti-business in state tax cases, pro-debtor, pro-bankrupt, pro-Indian, pro-environmental protection, pro-economic underdog pro-consumer, pro-accountability in governmental corruption, pro-original grantee, purchaser, or occupant in state and territorial land claims anti-union member or employee vis-a-vis union, anti-union in union antitrust, anti-union in union or closed shop, pro-trial in arbitration. In the context of issues pertaining to judicial power, consider liberal to be pro-exercise of judicial power, pro-judicial "activism", pro-judicial review of administrative action. In the context of issues pertaining to federalism, consider liberal to be pro-federal power, pro-executive power in executive/congressional disputes, anti-state. In the context of issues pertaining to federal taxation, consider liberal to be pro-United States and conservative pro-taxpayer. In miscellaneous, consider conservative the incorporation of foreign territories and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states or judcial authority vis-a-vis state or federal legislative authority, and consider liberal legislative veto. The lower court's decision direction is unspecifiable if the manner in which the Supreme Court took jurisdiction is original or certification; or if the direction of the Supreme Court's decision is unspecifiable and the main issue pertains to private law or interstate relations