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16 

HERRERA v. WYOMING 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

here.  Not only did the Tribe have an opportunity in Repsis
to litigate the subject of the alternative ground, it actually 
did so.8 

Finally,  regardless  of  whether  alternative  grounds 
always have preclusive effect, it is sufficient to say that, at 
least  in  a  declaratory  judgment  action,  each  conclusion
provides  an  independent  basis  for  preclusion.  “Since  the 
very purpose of declaratory relief is to achieve a final and
reliable  determination  of  legal  issues,  there  should  be  no
quibbling  about  the  necessity  principle.    Every  issue  that
the  parties  have  litigated  and  that  the  court  has  under-
taken to resolve is necessary to the judgment, and should 
be precluded.”  18 Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure 
§4421,  at  630;  see  Henglein  v.  Colt  Industries  Operating 
Corp., 260 F. 3d 201, 212 (CA3 2001).  Because Repsis was 
a declaratory judgment action aimed at settling the Tribe’s 
hunting  rights,  that  principle  suffices  to  bind  Herrera  to 
Repsis’s resolution of the occupied-land issue. 

D 

Herrera  and  the  United  States  offer  a  variety  of  other 
arguments to avoid the preclusive effect of Repsis, but all 

—————— 

8 From  the  beginning  of  the  Repsis  litigation,  Wyoming  argued  that 
Bighorn  was  occupied  land,  and  the  Tribe  argued  that  it  was  not. 
Wyoming pressed this argument in its answer to the Tribe’s declaratory 
judgment  complaint.    Record  in  No.  92–cv–1002,  Doc.  29,  p.  4.    Wyo-
ming  reiterated  that  argument  in  its  motion  for  summary  judgment 
and repeated it in its reply.  Id., Doc. 34, pp. 1, 6; id., Doc. 54, pp. 7–8. 
The  Tribe  dedicated  a  full  10  pages  of  its  summary  judgment  brief  to 
the  argument  that  “[t]he  Big  Horn  National  Forest  [l]ands  [are] 
‘[u]noccupied  [l]ands’ ”  of  the  United  States.    Id.,  Doc.  52,  pp.  6–15. 
Both parties repeated these arguments in their briefs before the Tenth 
Circuit.  Brief for Appellees 20–29 and Reply Brief for Appellants 2–3, 
and n. 6, in No. 94–8097 (1995).  And the Tribe pressed this argument 
as  an  independent  basis  for  this  Court’s  review  in  its  petition  for 
certiorari,  which  this  Court  denied.  Pet.  for  Cert.  in  Crow  Tribe  of 
Indians  v.  Repsis,  O. T.  1995,  No.  95–1560,  pp.  i,  22–24,  cert.  denied, 
517 U. S. 1221 (1996).