Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/17-532_q86b.pdf
Page Number: 37

12 

HERRERA v. WYOMING 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

Although the majority in the present case believes that 
Mille  Lacs  unquestionably  constitutes  a  sufficient  change 
in the legal context, see ante, at 13, there is a respectable 
argument on the other side.  I would not decide that ques-
tion  because  Herrera  and  other  members  of  the  Crow 
Tribe  are  bound  by  the  judgment  in  Repsis  even  if  the 
change-in-legal-context exception applies. 

C 
That is so because the Repsis judgment was based on a
second,  independently  sufficient  ground  that  has  nothing 
to do with Race Horse, namely, that the Bighorn National
Forest  is  not  “unoccupied.”    Herrera  and  the  United 
States,  appearing  as  an  amicus  in  his  support,  try  to 
escape the effect of this alternative ground based on other 
exceptions  to  the  general  rule  of  issue  preclusion.    But 
accepting  any  of  those  exceptions  would  work  a  substan-
tial  change  in  established  principles,  and  it  is  fortunate 
that the majority has not taken that route. 

Unfortunately, the track that the majority has chosen is
no  solution  because  today’s  decision  will  not  prevent  the 
Wyoming courts on remand in this case or in future cases
presenting  the  same  issue  from  holding  that  the  Repsis
judgment  binds  all  members  of  the  Crow  Tribe  who  hunt 
within the Bighorn National Forest.  And for the reasons I 
will explain, such a holding would be correct. 

1 

Attempting  to  justify  its  approach,  the  majority  claims 
that  the  decision  below  gave  preclusive  effect  to  only  the 

—————— 

has  limited  application  when  the  conduct  in  the  second  litigation
occurred in a different tax year than the conduct that was the subject of
the  earlier  judgment.    We  have  not,  prior  to  today,  applied  Sunnen’s 
tax-specific  policy  in  cases  that  do  not  involve  tax  liability  and  do  not
create a possibility of “inequalities in the administration of the revenue
laws.”  Ibid.