Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/17-532_q86b.pdf
Page Number: 34.0

Cite as:  587 U. S. ____ (2019) 

9 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

decide  Repsis.  And,  because  Herrera’s  asserted  right  is
based on his membership in the Tribe, a judgment binding
on the Tribe is also binding on him.  As a result, the Wyo-
ming appellate court held that Repsis bound Herrera and 
precluded  him  from  asserting  a  treaty-rights  defense.
That holding was correct. 

B 

The majority concludes otherwise based on an exception 
to  issue  preclusion  that  applies  when  there  has  been  an 
intervening “change in the applicable legal context.”  Ante, 
at  12  (internal  quotation  marks  and  alteration  omitted).
Specifically,  the  majority  reasons  that  the  Repsis  judg-
ment  was  based  on  Race  Horse  and  that  our  subsequent 
decision  in  Minnesota  v.  Mille  Lacs  Band  of  Chippewa 
Indians,  526  U. S.  172  (1999),  represents  a  change  in  the 
applicable  law  that  is  sufficient  to  abrogate  the  Repsis
judgment’s  preclusive  effect.  There  is  support  in  the
Restatement (Second) of Judgments for the general propo-
sition that a change in law may alter a judgment’s preclu-
sive  effect,  §28,  Comment  c,  p.  276  (1980),  and  in  a  prior 
case, Bobby v. Bies, 556 U. S. 825, 834 (2009), we invoked 
that  provision.  But  we  have  never  actually  held  that  a 
prior  judgment  lacked  preclusive  effect  on  this  ground. 
Nor  have  we  ever  defined  how  much  the  relevant  “legal
context”  must  change  in  order  for  the  exception  to  apply.
If  the  exception  is  applied  too  aggressively,  it  could  dan-
gerously  undermine  the  important  interests  served  by
issue preclusion.  So caution is in order in relying on that 
exception here.

The  majority  thinks  that  the  exception  applies  because 
Mille Lacs effectively overruled Race Horse, even though it
did not say that in so many words.  But that is a question-
able  interpretation.  The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  the 
Mille  Lacs  majority  held  back  from  actually  overruling 
Race  Horse,  even  though  the  dissent  claimed  that  it  had