Court Opinion

ID: 9426934
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:17.814476+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:03.903573
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Brennan,
with whom Mr. Justice Marshall joins, dissenting in part.
While I agree with the Court’s resolution of the rather tangled sovereign immunity question in Part I of the opinion, I cannot agree with the Court’s interpretation of the substantive rights of the Puyallup Indians under the Treaty of Medicine Creek.
When white settlers first began arriving in the western part of what is now Washington State, the Puyallup Indians, along with other tribes surrounding Puget Sound, were heavily dependent for their livelihoods on runs of salmon and steelhead that came up the rivers in great numbers to spawn. In the 1850’s the first territorial Governor, Isaac I. Stevens, entered into a number of virtually identical treaties with representatives of these western Washington tribes to confine the Indians to reservation lands, and to open up the rest of the region to white settlers. One of these treaties was the Treaty of Medicine Creek, negotiated in 1854 by Governor Stevens with the Puyallups, the neighboring Nisqually Tribe, and other bands. That treaty gave the Puyallups a reservation at the southern end of Commencement Bay at the mouth of the Puyallup River.
The provisions for the Indians’ all-important fishing rights stated:
“Article II. There is . . . reserved for the present use and occupation of the said tribes and bands [reservation land which] shall be set apart, and, so far as necessary, surveyed and marked out for their exclusive use .... “Article III. The right of taking fish, at all usual and accustomed grounds and stations, is further secured to said Indians, in common with all citizens of the Territory . . . .” 10 Stat. 1132, 1133. (Emphasis supplied.)
*180As I understand the Court’s reading of these provisions, with which I agree, Art. II guarantees exclusive use of the reservation, including exclusive fishing rights, to the Puyallups. Article III concerns fishing rights off the reservation, guaranteeing such rights at all “usual and accustomed grounds and stations,” not, however, exclusively but “in common with all the citizens of the Territory.”
The two questions presented are, first, what fishing rights do the Puyallup Indians have now, over 100 years after the signing of the treaty?; and, second, to what extent is the State of Washington empowered to limit those rights? We do not write on a clean slate as to either question in light of Puyallup I, 391 U. S. 392, decided in 1968, and Puyallup II, 414 U. S. 44. decided in 1973.
Puyallup I presented no question of the “extent of . . . reservation rights,” but only the question of the power of the State “to enjoin violations of state [fishing regulations] by individual tribal members fishing off the reservation.” 391 U. S., at 394, 397 n. II.1 Puyallup I held that Washington’s power to regulate off-reservation fishing for salmon and steel-head by the Puyallups was limited to regulations necessary in the interest of conservation, id., at 398, and remanded for a determination by the Washington State courts of reasonable and necessary conservation measures, and for an interpretation of the phrase “in common with all the citizens of the Territory” contained in Art. Ill of the treaty. The Washington Supreme Court’s response on remand was to sustain a total ban on all net fishing for steelhead. 80 Wash. 2d 561, 497 P. 2d 171 (1972).2 In consequence, the case returned here as Puyallup II, which held that the interpretation of Art. Ill as *181permitting the total ban was erroneous. The Court again remanded the case, this time for a determination of a means of “fairly apportion [ing]” the steelhead run between the hook- and-line sports fishery and the Puyallups’ net fishery. 414 U. S., at 48. It was again made explicit that only “off-reservation fishing,” governed by Art. Ill of the treaty, was involved. Id., at 45.
Before proceedings began on remand, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided a separate case in which the State of Washington challenged “the continued existence of the Puyallup Indian Reservation and as a consequence, the right of the Puyallup Tribe of Indians to fish, free from state interference, on that part of the Puyallup River lying within the Reservation.” Relying on Mattz v. Arnett, 412 U. S. 481 (1973), the Court of Appeals held “that the Puyal-lup Indian reservation continues to exist.” United States v. Washington, 496 F. 2d 620, 621 (1974) (emphasis supplied). The Washington Supreme Court, referring to the “recently established, continuing existence of the Puyallup Reservation,” accepted the holding of the Court of Appeals, but nevertheless concluded that the State was not foreclosed from exercising regulatory authority within the reservation. 86 Wash. 2d 664, 668-669, 548 P. 2d 1058, 1063-1064 (1976). The court construed Art. Ill of the treaty to require that the Puyallups be allocated 45% of the harvestable natural-run steelhead for their net fishery, and that the remaining 55% be allocated to the hook-and-line sports fishery. The court further held that none of the harvestable hatchery-bred steelhead should be allocated to the Puyallups’ net fishery. Thus, despite its acceptance of the Court of Appeals’ holding that the reservation still existed, the Washington Supreme Court applied Art. Ill of the treaty — limited by its terms to off-reservation fishing — to on-reservation fishing governed by Art. II.
Unlike either Puyallup I or Puyallup II, the case before *182us must be determined under Art. II, which in plainest English provides for “exclusive” fishing rights for the Puyal-lups. Article II cannot be read, in my view, to sanction the apportionment of harvestable fish between the Puyallups and other fishermen. Nor has this Court ever decided whether a State has the power to regulate on-reservation fishing in the interest of conservation. See Mattz v. Arnett, supra, at 485.3 I would therefore reverse. I would remand, as we did in Mattz, for a determination by the state courts in the first instance of what measures, if any, are necessary to regulate the Puyallups’ on-reservation fishery for conservation purposes.4
*183The Court tries to avoid the force of this analysis by denigrating the holding of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Court states: “The continued existence of the Puyallup Reservation has been a matter of dispute on which we express no opinion. . . . [The Ninth Circuit’s] decision predates our consideration of DeCoteau v. District County Court, 420 U. S. 425, and Rosebud Sioux Tribe v. Kneip, 430 U. S. 584.” Ante, at 173 n. 11. This, to say the least, is a casual disregard of settled principles of res judicata and collateral estoppel. The United States and the State of Washington were parties to the action in the Court of Appeals, and surely we must assume, in the absence of any suggestion to the contrary, that the parties fully litigated their positions respecting reservation status. The Court of Appeals squarely held, contrary to the contention of the State of Washington, that the reservation continued to exist, and review here was denied. Washington v. United States, 419 U. S. 1032 (1974). The Supreme Court of Washington in the case now before us accepted the Ninth Circuit’s holding as federal law binding on it. It is inappropriate now for the Court to denigrate the impact of that holding, particularly when the result is to vest authority in the State that lost on just that issue in the Court of Appeals.
The Court also questions whether on-reservation fishing is at issue in this case, relying on the fact that the Puyallups have alienated almost all of their land, and that only 22 acres of the reservation now remain in trust status. Ante, at 174. The Court does not go so far as to deny the existence of the reservation, and, of course, selling reservation land to non-Indians can be “completely consistent with continued reservation status,” Mattz v. Arnett, supra, at 497; Rosebud *184Sioux Tribe v. Kneip, 430 U. S. 584, 586-587 (1077); DeCoteau v. District County Court, 420 U. S. 425, 432, 444 (1975). Nor does the Court, or indeed any party, contend that somehow the sale of most of the lands included the sale of the exclusive fishing rights the Puyallups were granted by Art. II. The Court’s argument seems to be that since the Puyallups do not now “hold Puyallup River fishing grounds for their ‘exclusive use’ ” they have forfeited any claim to enforce their exclusive fishing rights under Art. II. Ante, at 174. This analysis ignores the fact that the Puyallups do not now hold their fishing grounds for their exclusive use precisely because the State has relentlessly sought for many years to prevent their doing so. Indeed, this very suit was begun 14 years ago in an effort to prevent the Puyallups from exercising what they claimed to be their treaty rights on their old reservation.
Today’s decision, ironically, is at odds with the position taken by the State in another case involving Indian fishing rights in Puget Sound. There the State agreed that on-reservation fishing is not subject to regulation by the State. In United States v. Washington, 384 F. Supp. 312, 332 (WD Wash. 1974), aff’d, 520 F. 2d 676 (CA9 1975), cert. denied, 423 U. S. 1086 (1976), District Judge Boldt, construed the language of Art. II of the Treaty of Medicine Creek and that of virtually identical treaties entered into by Governor Stevens with other western Washington tribes to mean that “[a]n exclusive right of fishing was reserved by the tribes within the area and boundary waters of their reservations, wherein tribal members might make their homes if they chose to do so.” (Footnote omitted; emphasis in original.) This proposition was apparently so self-evident to the parties, including the State of Washington, that “[a]ll parties in this case agree[d] that on reservation fishing is not subject to state regulation . . . .” 384 F. Supp., at 341.5
*185Doubtless 14 years of litigation have made the Court anxious to bring this case to an end, and this explains today’s holding — just broad enough to dispose of the Puyallups’ substantive claims but so narrowly fact-specific that it will probably have no significant impact on the Puget Sound Indian fishing rights case still pending in the District Court. This suggests that the result would not be the same were the case here for the first time instead of the third. For the language of the treaty is very clear: On-reservation fishing is governed by Art. II.
I respectfully dissent.

 The question of whether the Puyallups’ reservation continued to exist was not reached. 391 U. S., at 394 n. 1.

 The state court also sustained a regulation permitting some net fishing by the Puyallups for salmon. Review of that holding was not sought here.

 Mattz v. Arnett held that the Klamath River Reservation in California had not been extinguished, but intimated no view on the authority of California to regulate fishing on the reservation. 412 U. S., at 485. The Klamath River has an anadromous fishery comparable to that on the Puyallup River, in that fishermen allowed net fishing can prevent all fish in a given run from reaching their spawning grounds. On remand in Mattz, the California Court of Appeal expressed doubt that the State could regulate on-reservation fishing even in the interest of conservation, but did not decide the issue because the Indians’ fishing activity was found not to be a sufficient threat to conservation to justify state regulation. Arnett v. Five Gill Nets, 48 Cal. App. 3d 454, 463-464, 121 Cal. Rptr. 906, 912-913 (1975), cert. denied, 425 U. S. 907 (1976).

 The degree of danger to the survival of the anadromous fishery in the Puyallup River posed by the Puyallups’ net fishing has been a matter of dispute in this case from the beginning. The parties, even now, disagree about the willingness of the Puyallups to observe sound conservation practices. Compare Brief for Respondent 17-18 with Brief for Petitioners 11-12. The Puyallups apparently now carry on their off-reservation salmon net fishery under the supervision of the Federal District Court for the Western District of Washington. United States v. Washington, 384 F. Supp. 312, 420 (1974); Brief for Petitioners 12. District Judge Boldt in that case found that none of the fishing tribes of western Washington, including the Puyallups, have conducted their off-reservation fisheries in such a way as to endanger any species:
“With a single possible exception testified to by a highly interested witness . . . and not otherwise substantiated, notwithstanding three years of exhaustive trial preparation, neither Game nor Fisheries has discovered *183and produced any credible evidence showing any instance, remote or recent, when a definitely identified member of any plaintiff tribe exercised his off reservation treaty rights by any conduct or means detrimental to the perpetuation of any species of anadromous fish.” 384 F. Supp., at 338 n. 26.

 This decision was handed down a month and a half before the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided in United, States v. Washing*185ton, 496 F. 2d 620 (1974), that the Puyallups’ reservation continued to exist. On appeal from Judge Boldt’s decision, the State challenged certain aspects of the calculation of the allocation under Art. Ill related to on-reservation catches, but it appears never to have asserted that it had authority to regulate the on-reservation fishery. The Court of Appeals affirmed Judge Boldt’s decision in all relevant respects, 520 F. 2d 676, 690 (1975), and nowhere suggested that on-reservation fishing by the Puyallups was to be treated differently from that of any other tribe. The Court of Appeals affirmed Judge Boldt’s decision over a year after it found that the Puyallups’ reservation had never been extinguished.