Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/17-1498_8mjp.pdf
Page Number: 12.0

8 

ATLANTIC RICHFIELD CO. v. CHRISTIAN 

Opinion of the Court 

Court has jurisdiction to review the decision of the Montana
Supreme  Court  and,  if  so,  whether  the  Montana  courts 
have jurisdiction over the landowners’ claim for restoration 
damages. 

A 
Congress  has  authorized  this  Court  to  review  “[f]inal
judgments  or  decrees  rendered  by  the  highest  court  of  a 
State.”  28  U. S. C.  §1257(a).    To  qualify  as  final,  a  state 
court judgment must be “an effective determination of the 
litigation  and  not  of  merely  interlocutory  or  intermediate
steps therein.”  Jefferson v. City of Tarrant, 522 U. S. 75, 81 
(1997).  The landowners contend that, because the Montana 
Supreme Court allowed the case to proceed to trial, its judg-
ment was not final and we lack jurisdiction.

But the Montana Supreme Court exercised review in this
case through a writ of supervisory control.  Under Montana 
law, a supervisory writ proceeding is a self-contained case, 
not an interlocutory appeal.  Mont. Const., Art. VII, §§2(1)–
(2); Mont. Rules App. Proc. 6(6), 14(1), 14(3) (2019).  Thus 
we have held that a “writ of supervisory control issued by 
the Montana Supreme Court is a final judgment within our
jurisdiction.”  Fisher v. District Court of Sixteenth Judicial 
Dist. of Mont., 424 U. S. 382, 385, n. 7 (1976) (per curiam).

The landowners protest that our precedents only support 
reviewing supervisory writ proceedings that are limited to 
jurisdictional questions.  But the scope of our jurisdiction to
review  supervisory  writ  proceedings  is  not  so  restricted. 
When the Montana Supreme Court issues a writ of super-
visory control, it initiates a separate lawsuit.  It is the na-
ture  of  the  Montana  proceeding,  not  the  issues  the  state
court reviewed, that establishes our jurisdiction. 

B 
We likewise find that the Act does not strip the Montana
courts  of  jurisdiction  over  this  lawsuit.    It  deprives  state