PUBLISH
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

________________ _________________ UTE INDIAN TRIBE OF THE UINTAH AND OURAY RESERVATION, Plaintiff - Appellant,

v. GREGORY D. MCKEE; T & L LIVESTOCK, INC.; MCKEE FARMS, INC.; GM FERTILIZER, INC., Defendants - Appellees. No. 20-4098

________________ _________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Utah (D.C. No. 2:18-CV-00314-HCN)

________________ _________________ Frances C. Bassett, Patterson Earnhart Real Bird & Wilson LLP, (Jeremy J. Patterson with her on the briefs), Louisville, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellant J. Craig Smith, Smith Hartvigsen, PLLC, (Clark R. Nielsen, Jennie B. Garner, and Devin L. Bybee with him on the brief), Salt Lake City, Utah, for Defendants-Appellees

________________ _________________ Before BACHARACH , KELLY , and CARSON , Circuit Judges.

________________ _________________ CARSON , Circuit Judge.

________________ _________________ Courts serve the important function in our society of dispa ssionately resolving legal disputes. But a court may do so only when its jurisdiction covers the parties FILED United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit 

### April 27, 2022 Christopher M. Wolpert Clerk of Court Appellate Case: 20-4098 Document: 010110676381 Date Filed: 04/27/2022 Page: 12 and the subject matter of the dispute. Th is appeal boils down to whether a tribal court has jurisdiction over a dispute between the tribe and a non-Indian about rights to water within reservation bound aries but not on Indian land. This case arises from a long-running irri gation-water dispute between Plaintiff Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ou ray Reservation and Defendant Gregory McKee, who is not a member of the Tribe. 1 Defendant owns non-Indian fee land within the Ute reserv ation’s exterior boundaries and uses water from two irrigation canals flowing through his prop erty. Plaintiff claims the water belongs to the United States in trust for the Tribe. Plaintiff sued Defendant in the Ute tribal court, al leging that Defendant had been diverting the Tribe’s water for years, and won. Plaintiff then petitioned the district court to recognize a nd enforce the tribal-court j udgment. But the district court dismissed the case after holding that th e tribal court lacked jurisdiction to enter its judgment. Because we too conclude that the tribal court lacked jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s dispute with a nonmember of th e Tribe arising on non-Indian fee lands, we exercise jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm.
I. In the nineteenth century , the federal government entered a treaty with many bands of the Ute Indian Tribe to create a tribal reservati on. See Treaty with the Ute

1 The other defendants, T & L Livestoc k, Inc., McKee Farms, Inc., and GM Fertilizer, Inc., are all busin esses owned by Defendant Mc Kee. For clarity, we use “Defendant” to refer to both McKee and his businesses. Appellate Case: 20-4098 Document: 010110676381 Date Filed: 04/27/2022 Page: 23 Indians art. 2, March 2, 186 8, 15 Stat. 619. In the ea rly twentieth cen tury, under the General Allotment Act of 1887, ch. 119, 24 Stat. 388 (codified as amended at 25 U.S.C. § 331 et seq .), the United States divided the reservation into “allotments,” creating individual parcels of land that the government then gave to individual tribe members. See Act of Marc h 3, 1905, ch. 1479, 33 Stat. 1048, 1069. The government then opened any remaining reservation land fo r settlement by non-Indians. See id. Around the same time, Congr ess authorized the Uintah Indian Irrigation Project (“UIIP”) to build canals and d itches to irrigate the Ute Indi ans’ allotted lands. See Act of June 21, 1906, ch . 3504, 34 Stat. 325, 375. Co ngress provided that the Secretary of the Interior woul d hold title to the UIIP “in tr ust for the Indians.” Id. In 1923, the United States, as truste e of the Ute Indians, sued many nonIndians in the District of Utah over the use of irrigation water in the UIIP area. See United States v. Cedarview Irrigation Co ., No. 4427 (D. Utah 1923) (“Cedarview Decree”). The court decreed that the Indians had “the first and an exclusive right . . . to divert from the Uintah River and its tri butaries by certain ditches and canals water in certain quantities at certai n times and under certain cond itions.” Id. at 2. The court explained that any rights that the non -Indian defendants had in the water were subordinate to the Indians’ rights, so th e court permanently en joined “all persons diverting or using wa ter” from the UIIP from “hinderi ng, preventing or interfering” with the Ute Indians’ wate r rights. Id. at 6. In 1934, Congress passed the Indian Reor ganization Act, ch. 576, 48 Stat. 984, 984, 987 (1934) (codified at 25 U.S.C. §§ 5101, 51 23), ending the allotment of tribal Appellate Case: 20-4098 Document: 010110676381 Date Filed: 04/27/2022 Page: 34 lands and authorizing Indian tribes to adopt constitutio ns and charters for selfgovernance. The Ute Indian Tribe of th e Uintah and Ouray Reservation adopted a constitution and bylaws in 1937, creating a tr ibal government for its territory. See Hackford v. Babbitt, 14 F.3d 1457, 1461 (10th Cir. 1994). Defendant, who is not a member of the Ut e Tribe, owns land that was part of the Ute reservation but opened for non-Indi an settlement during the allotment period of the early twentieth centu ry. Two UIIP canals—the D eep Creek Canal and Lateral No. 9—cross Defendant’s property. In 2012, Plaintiff received a report that Defendant was diverting water from the D eep Creek Canal and Lateral No. 9 to flood irrigate his property. Plai ntiff investigated and dete rmined that Defendant was unlawfully misappropriating tribal waters in violation of the Cedarview Decree. Plaintiff sued Defendant in the Ute tribal court. Defendant moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of s ubject-matter jurisdiction. Th e tribal court denied the motion, holding that it ha d subject-matter jurisdicti on because the Ute Tribe has sovereign authority to manage the use of its territory and natural resources by tribe members and nonmembers. The tribal cour t further held that it had subject-matter jurisdiction also under Montana v. Unite d States, 450 U.S. 544 (1981), because the Tribe can regulate activities of all non-Indi ans who enter a consensual relationship with the Tribe or whose conduct imperils the Tribe’s political integrity, economic security, or health and welfare. Defendant then ceased participati ng in the litigation. After a bench trial, the trib al court found that Plaintiff was the beneficial owner of the water in the Deep Creek Canal a nd Lateral No. 9 and that Defendant Appellate Case: 20-4098 Document: 010110676381 Date Filed: 04/27/2022 Page: 45 misappropriated tribal water to irrigate his property. The tribal court entered judgment against Defendant. To date, Defendant has sati sfied no part of the tribal court’s judgment. In April 2018, Plaintiff petitioned the District of Utah to recognize and enforce the tribal court’s judgment against Defendant . The parties cross-moved for summary judgment. The district court granted De fendant’s motion, holdi ng that the tribalcourt judgment was unenforceable because the tribal court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction, and dismissed the case. The district court al so denied Plaintiff’s motion for leave to amend because the court dete rmined that the proposed amendment would have been futile. Plaintiff appeals.
II.
A. Plaintiff first challenges the district court’s grant of summary judgment for Defendant. We review a grant of summary judgment de novo. US Airways, Inc. v. O’Donnell, 627 F.3d 1318, 13 24 (10th Cir. 2010) (citati on omitted). We review the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, affirming only if no genuine dispute exists about a ny material fact and the mova nt is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Tesone v. Empire Mktg. Strategies , 942 F.3d 979, 994 (10th Cir. 2019) (citations omitted). We also review de novo any legal que stions the district court resolved in granting summary judgmen t. In re MDL 2700 Genentech Herceptin (Trastuzumab) Mktg. & Sales Prac. Litig., 960 F.3d 1210, 1224 (10th Cir. 2020) (citation omitted). The scope of a tribal c ourt’s jurisdiction is a question of federal Appellate Case: 20-4098 Document: 010110676381 Date Filed: 04/27/2022 Page: 56 law. Thlopthlocco Tribal Town v. S tidham, 762 F.3d 1226, 1234 (10th Cir. 2014) (citation omitted). Indian tribes are independent commu nities with many rights and powers of self-government, but those pow ers are limited. Plains Co m. Bank v. Long Fam. Land & Cattle Co., 554 U.S. 316, 327 (2008) (c itations omitted). And while tribal sovereignty includes the authority to adjudi cate disputes in trib al courts, a tribal court’s jurisdiction cannot ex ceed the tribe’s legi slative authority. Id. at 330 (citation omitted). For example, tribes can genera lly regulate only their territory and their members on the reservation. See id. at 327. And though Indian tribes can exclude outsiders from tribal land, they have no general authority over nonmembers of the tribe. Id. at 327–28 (citations omitted). Th at is true even wh en nonmembers engage in activity on the rese rvation and especially when they do so on “non-Indian fee land”—land owned in fee simple by non-In dians. Id. at 328 (citation omitted). The Supreme Court has recognized onl y two exceptions under which Indian tribes can regulate nonmembers. Tribes ca n regulate the activity of nonmembers who enter consensual relationships with them or their member s, and they can regulate the activity of nonmembers on reservation land—even non -Indian fee land—if that activity threatens their political integrity, economic security, or health and welfare. Montana, 450 U.S. at 565–6 6 (citations omitted). But th ese exceptions are narrow, and a tribal court presumptively lacks jurisdiction over nonmem bers’ activities on non-Indian fee land. See Pl ains Com., 554 U.S. at 330. Thus, Plaintiff bears the burden of showing that one of the exceptions applies if it wish es to overcome the Appellate Case: 20-4098 Document: 010110676381 Date Filed: 04/27/2022 Page: 67 presumption that it cannot regulate Defenda nt’s activities on non-Indian fee land. Id. (citation omitted). Plaintiff first argues that it need not resort to the Montana exceptions to establish tribal-court jurisd iction because an Indian tr ibe has inherent sovereign authority to exclude nonmembers from its territory. Plaintif f argues that because it is the beneficial owner of the exclusive right to use the water in the Deep Creek Canal and Lateral No. 9, its inherent authority to exclude others from its territory includes the authority to exclude others from usi ng its water. And a lthough Defendant, a nonmember of the Tribe, allegedly misappr opriated Plaintiff’s water on non-Indian fee land, Plaintiff argues th at “no rational basis in la w or logic” supports treating water differently than territo ry. Thus, Plaintiff argues th at we must determine the merits of its claim to exclusive rights in the water to know whether the tribal court had jurisdiction. The district court, however, determined that the merits of Plaintiff’s claim to the water are inapplicable to the jurisdictional question because regardless of the extent of Plaintiff’s water rights, the tribal court lacked jurisdiction over a nonmember’s water use on nontribal land. 2 We agree with the di strict court; we need not wade into the merits of Plaintiff’s clai m to exclusive rights in the disputed water because the tribal cour t lacked jurisdiction.

2 In footnote one of its order, the distri ct court suggested th at it was skeptical of Plaintiff’s claim to exclusive rights in th e disputed water. But the district court made clear that it was not deciding the merits of Plaintiff’s claim to the water. We also express no opinion on the me rits of Plaintiff’s claim. Appellate Case: 20-4098 Document: 010110676381 Date Filed: 04/27/2022 Page: 78 Plaintiff concedes that Defendant is not a member of the Tribe and that the alleged misappropriation of water occurred on non-Indian fee land. Supreme Court precedent makes clear th en that Plaintiff ha s no jurisdiction over Defendant’s activity unless one of the Montana exceptions appl ies. See Plains Com., 554 U.S. at 329 (characterizing the Montana exceptions as th e only circumstances where Indian tribes can exercise civil jurisdiction over nonmembe rs on non-Indian fee land); Strate v. A-1 Contractors, 520 U.S. 438, 446 (1997) (“Indian tribes lack civil authority over the conduct of nonmembers on non-Indian land within a reservation, subject to [the Montana] exceptions . . . .”). Yet Plainti ff urges us to overlook that precedent and hold that as long as an Indian tribe clai ms an interest in a natural resource on nontribal land, it may exercise civil ju risdiction over a nonmember’s use of the natural resource even if the use does not imp licate one of the Montana factors. Thus, Plaintiff effectively invites us to create a third exception to the general rule that Indian tribes lack jurisdic tion over the actions of nonmembe rs on nontribal land. We decline the invitation. To be sure, Indian tribes have i nherent sovereign authority to exclude nonmembers from their territories. Pl ains Com., 554 U.S. at 327–28 (citation omitted). And that authority extends to regulating nonmembe rs’ use of tribal resources on tribal lands. S ee, e.g., Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache Tribe, 455 U.S. 130, 133, 144 (1982) (holding that an Indian tr ibe’s power to exclude includes the power to tax nonmembers’ severance of oil and gas from tribal la nd); Montana, 450 U.S. at 557 (holding that an Indian tribe may pr ohibit or regulate hunting and fishing by Appellate Case: 20-4098 Document: 010110676381 Date Filed: 04/27/2022 Page: 89 nonmembers on tribal land). But Plaintif f points to no case in which the Supreme Court or we have held that an Indian tr ibe may regulate the use of natural resources outside the tribe’s territory. In fact, in Montana, the Supreme Court did the opposite, holding that while tribes may regulate hun ting and fishing by nonmembers on tribal lands, they may not do so on non-Indian fee land. 450 U.S. at 563. When the Supreme Court has upheld trib al authority to regulate nonmembers’ use of natural resources, it has done so because the re gulations were a condition of the nonmembers’ presence on tribal territory. S ee, e.g., id. at 557 (noting that tribes may prohibit hunting and fishing by nonmembers on tribal lands or “ condition their entry by charging a fee or estab lishing bag and creel limits ” (emphasis added)); see also Merrion, 455 U.S. at 144–45 (charact erizing nonmembers’ payment of a tax for the severance of oil and ga s from tribal lands as a condition of the nonmembers’ continued presence on tribal lands). But th e tribal court’s adju dication of the water dispute here was not a condition of Defe ndant’s presence on Pl aintiff’s territory— Defendant used the water only on non-Indian fee land. Thus, the tribal court did not have jurisdiction arising from the Tribe’s authority to exclude nonmembers from its territory. Nor is Plaintiff’s argument persuasive that water and territo ry are the same. Plaintiff argues that prohibiting the use of water to which it has exclusive rights is identical to excluding people fro m its territory. In support, Plaintiff cites City of Albuquerque v. Browner, 97 F. 3d 415, 424 (10th Ci r. 1996), in which we upheld the United States Environmental Protection Agen cy’s (“EPA”) author ity to enforce an Appellate Case: 20-4098 Document: 010110676381 Date Filed: 04/27/2022 Page: 910 Indian tribe’s water-quality standards upstr eam from the reservation. But City of Albuquerque does not support Pl aintiff’s sweeping assertion of tribal jurisdiction. First, the Indian tribe in City of Albuquerque had ad opted water-quality standards under the express authorization of the Clean Water Act. Id. at 4 18. And second, we emphasized that the water-quality standa rds were enforceable beyond the tribe’s territory because the EPA—not the tribe—carried out the en forcement. Id. at 424. Here, by contrast, Plaintiff points to no federal statute aut horizing Plaintiff’s regulation of the disputed water, and Plai ntiff claims for itsel f the authority to regulate the use of the wa ter beyond its territory. 3 In short, Plain tiff’s dispute with Defendant over Defendant’s use of water on his property is not a matter of tribal selfgovernment, but a matter of the Tribe’s exte rnal relations. And tribal sovereignty traditionally does not extend to governin g external relations with non-Indians. 4 See Montana, 450 U.S. at 564.

3 At oral argument, Plaintiff’s counsel ar gued that Plaintiff has the authority to regulate Defendant’s use of the disputed water only becau se Defendant’s property is within the exterior boundaries of Plaintiff’s reservation. Plaintiff’s counsel conceded that if Defendant misappropriated trib al water farther upstream, outside of reservation boundaries, then the tribal court would lack jurisdiction. But that distinction is without merit. If owning rights to use the wa ter renders the water equivalent to territory, then the water’s location would not affect Plaintiff’s plenary authority over it. And the Supreme Court has made clear that non-Indian fee land— like Defendant’s property—is not tribal land. See Plains Com., 554 U.S. at 328. So the Tribe could not exercise plenary ju risdiction over the water on Defendant’s property if it could not do so on property outside the ex terior boundaries of the reservation.

4 The district court also rejected an argument that owning easements in the Deep Creek Canal and Lateral No. 9, like ow ning land in fee simp le, gives the Tribe inherent sovereign authority to exclude nonmembers. On that point, Plaintiff’s Appellate Case: 20-4098 Document: 010110676381 Date Filed: 04/27/2022 Page: 1011 Because Defendant is not a member of the Tribe and allege dly misappropriated tribal water on non-Indian f ee land, the tribal court coul d have jurisdiction only if Defendant entered “consensual relationships with the trib e or its members, through commercial dealing, contracts, leases, or other arrangements” or if Defendant’s conduct “threaten[ed] or ha[d] some dir ect effect on the political integrity, the economic security, or the hea lth or welfare of the tribe. ” Id. at 565–66 (citations omitted). The tribal court held, and Plai ntiff argues, that the tribal court had jurisdiction under both Montana exceptions. As to the first exception, Plaintiff asserts that Defenda nt has agricultural leases on Plaintiff’s lands and a farm ing partnership with a trib e member. Plaintiff argues that Defendant’s consensual agreements with both the Tr ibe and one of its members subject Defendant to the tribal court’s juri sdiction under the first Montana exception. But an Indian tribe does not gain plen ary jurisdiction over all activities of a nonmember simply by having some contract ual relationship with him—the exercise of jurisdiction must have a nexus to the pa rties’ relationship. See Atkinson Trading Co. v. Shirley, 532 U.S. 645, 656 (2001). The dispute must rela te to the parties’ contractual relationship such that the nonmembe r can fairly be said to have consented to tribal-court jurisdiction by contracting with the Tribe. See id. at 656–57 (holding

opening brief merely defines “easement” be fore stating that Plaintiff’s right to exclude stems from its rights to the water ra ther than any easemen ts in the canals. We thus do not consider this issue. S ee Bronson v. Swensen, 500 F.3d 1099, 1104 (10th Cir. 2007) (“[W]e rou tinely have declined to cons ider arguments that are not raised, or are inadequately presented, in an appellant’s opening brief.”). Appellate Case: 20-4098 Document: 010110676381 Date Filed: 04/27/2022 Page: 1112 the first Montana exception inapplicable because a non-Indian could not have consented to a tribal regula tion by entering an unrelated ag reement with the tribe). Plaintiff identifies no connec tion between Defendant’s use of the disputed water on non-Indian fee land and Defend ant’s agricultural leases on other lands or Defendant’s farming partnership. Indeed , this water dispute would be no different even if those agreements did not exist. Without a nexu s between Defendant’s use of the disputed water and any of those agreements, Pl aintiff cannot show that through the agreements, Defendant consented to tribal-c ourt jurisdiction over his use of irrigation water on his non-Indian fee land. Thus, th e first Montana exception did not provide the tribal court with jurisdiction. 5

5 In its reply brief, Plaintiff asserts th at this case involves more than just the water dispute. Plaintiff argues that Defe ndant used his farming partnership with a Ute Tribe member to unlawfully harvest cr ops on tribal land. Considering this a trespass on tribal land, the tribal court enjoined Defenda nt from continuing to harvest on those lands. But even so, the disput e about Defendant’s water use on his nonIndian fee land has no nexus to Defendant’s alleged cr op harvesting on tribal land under his farming partnership. So that agreement did not give the tribal court jurisdiction to adjudicat e the water dispute. And to the extent Plainti ff argues that we should en force the tribal court’s injunction against Defendant’s continued harvest on tribal lands even if the tribal court lacked jurisdiction over the water dis pute, Plaintiff has waived that argument. From the beginning, this lawsuit has focuse d on enforcing the tribal court’s judgment as to the disputed water. The summary-judgment briefing dealt only with the tribal court’s jurisdiction over the parties’ water dispute. Plaintiff never argued that the district court could enforce the tribal c ourt’s crop-harvesting in junction independent of the water dispute. Nor did Plaintiff argue that in its ope ning brief in this Court. The opening brief only mentions in pass ing when describing Defendant’s farming partnership that the tribal court considered Defendant’s crop harvesting a trespass. Plaintiff has thus waived a ny argument that we should enfo rce the tribal court’s cropharvesting injunction even if the tribal c ourt lacked jurisdiction over the parties’ water dispute. See Reedy v. Werholtz , 660 F.3d 1270, 1274 (10t h Cir. 2011) (“[A] Appellate Case: 20-4098 Document: 010110676381 Date Filed: 04/27/2022 Page: 1213 Plaintiff argues also that the tribal court had jurisdiction under the second Montana exception because Defendant’s use of the disputed water threatens or directly affects the Trib e’s political integrity, economic se curity, or health or welfare. The Supreme Court has stated that for this exception to apply, the challenged conduct cannot merely injure the tribe but must be “catastrophic for tribal self-government.” Plains Com., 554 U.S. at 341 (citation and in ternal quotation marks omitted). The district court, finding no evid ence that Defendant’s use of the disputed water had been catastrophic for the Tribe, determined that the tribal court lacked jurisdiction over the dispute. Plaintiff does not argue that Defendant’s use of the disputed water has been “catastrophic for tribal self-government. ” Instead, Plaintif f argues that the “catastrophic” requirement is dictum we should decline to follow. We disagree. In Plains Commerce, the Supreme Court held th at a tribal court lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate a dispute about the sale of non-I ndian fee land in part because the second Montana exception did not apply. Id. Acco rding to the Court, the exception did not apply because the sale of non-Indian fee land “cannot fairly be called catastrophic for tribal self-government” even if the sale disappoints the tribe. Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). In othe r words, the Court held that the second Montana exception did not apply becau se the challenged conduct was not catastrophic to tribal self-gove rnment. Thus, it was not di ctum, and it binds us here.

party waives issues and arguments raised for the first time in a reply brief.” (quotation omitted)). Appellate Case: 20-4098 Document: 010110676381 Date Filed: 04/27/2022 Page: 1314 Although Plaintiff argues th at Defendant’s use of the disputed water inflicts more than a minor injury on th e Tribe, Plaintiff does not a ttempt to meet its burden to show that Defendant’s use of the disputed water is catastrophi c for tribal selfgovernment. And Plaintiff could not easily do so on this record. Defendant has allegedly been using the dis puted water for over sixteen y ears with no apparent effect on Plaintiff’s “project of tr ibal self-government.” See Plains Com., 554 U.S. at 341 (noting that the sale of land to a non-Indian could not be catastrophic for tribal selfgovernment because the land had been owne d by non-Indians for fifty years and “the project of tribal self-govern ment ha[d] proceeded without interruption”). Defendant purportedly had been using the disputed wa ter for almost thirte en years before the Tribe ever learned of it—a nd only then because someone reported it. That such a large amount of time passed does not necessari ly mean that Defendant’s use of the water was lawful or that Plaintiff cannot seek a remedy in an appr opriate forum. But it means that the dispute does not sufficien tly jeopardize tribal self-government to vest tribal courts with ju risdiction to adjudicate it. Because neither Montana exception app lies to Defendant’s alleged conduct, the district court correctly determined that the tribal court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over the par ties’ water dispute.
B. Plaintiff challenges also the district c ourt’s dismissal with prejudice and denial of Plaintiff’s motion for leave to amend. The district court denied leave to amend because it determined that Plaintiff’s proposed amendm ent would be futile. We Appellate Case: 20-4098 Document: 010110676381 Date Filed: 04/27/2022 Page: 1415 usually review the denial of leave to ame nd for an abuse of discretion, but when the reason for the denial was that amendment would be futile, we review the futility determination de novo. Jones v. Norton, 8 09 F.3d 564, 579 (10th Cir. 2015) (citation omitted). Plaintiff’s proposed amended comp laint remained a “complaint for recognition, registration, and enforcement of a tribal c ourt judgment.” Plaintiff argues that the proposed amended complaint also sought redress directly under the 1923 Cedarview Decree. But nowhere did Plaintiff’s proposed amended complaint assert a standalone claim arising from th e Cedarview Decree. The allegations in Plaintiff’s proposed amended complaint centered on the tribal-court litigation and judgment. Plaintiff proposed that it woul d request an injuncti on requiring Defendant to comply with the Ce darview Decree only as part of it s relief to enfo rce the tribalcourt judgment—not as reli ef for an independent cl aim based on the Decree. Because Plaintiff’s proposed amended complaint asserted only a claim to recognize and enforce the tribal-court judgment, the dist rict court correctly determined that the amendment would be futile. As for the district cour t’s dismissal with prejudice, Plaintiff argues that the district court erred because dismissals for lack of ju risdiction should be without prejudice. But the district cour t did not dismiss this case fo r lack of jurisdiction. The district court dismissed on th e merits Plaintiff’s claim to enforce th e tribal-court judgment because the tribal court lacked jurisdiction. In other words, Plaintiff sought enforcement of a tribal-court judgment, and the district court made the merits Appellate Case: 20-4098 Document: 010110676381 Date Filed: 04/27/2022 Page: 1516 determination that the tribal-court judgmen t is unenforceable. And to the extent Plaintiff believes a dismissal with prejudi ce in this case m eans it cannot seek a decision on the merits in another forum, Plaintiff is mistaken . Dismissal with prejudice bars Plaintiff only from bringing another claim to enforce the tribal-court judgment. It does not bar Plaintiff from pursuing any other clai ms arising from its water dispute with Defendant. The distri ct court did not err in dismissing with prejudice the claim to enfor ce the tribal-court judgment.
AFFIRMED. Appellate Case: 20-4098 Document: 010110676381 Date Filed: 04/27/2022 Page: 16