Court Opinion

ID: 9628723
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:30:28.904741+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:10.425753
License: Public Domain

Donworth, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part) — This case involves the treaty rights of the appellant Nisqually Indians to fish at the usual and accustomed fishing grounds and stations under the Treaty of Medicine Creek.
I agree with the majority in holding that the trial court had jurisdiction of this controversy, but I do not agree with the majority’s disposition of this case for the reasons stated by me in the companion case (No. 38611) involving the Puyallup Tribe (ante p. 245, 422 P.2d 754).
In the instant case, appellants have stipulated to the facts quoted in the majority opinion. It seems ironic that appellants in this case have thus admitted facts which, in my opinion, the respondent state departments were unable to prove by a preponderance of the evidence in the Puyallup case.
Nevertheless, I would reverse the trial court’s injunctive decree and direct that the action be dismissed for the three reasons which I stated in the Puyallup cases. Even with the facts admitted in the stipulation, the reasons which I discussed therein are still applicable to the present case.
The majority opinion states that, if this court fails to interpret correctly appellants’ treaty rights to fish off the reservation, the United States Supreme Court is available for a final determination of the case. This is theoretically true, but we should not overlook the fact that the Supreme Court has twice declined to review either of two cases (one from a state supreme court and one from a United States *281court of appeals) in which the constitutional status of a similar Indian treaty was brought into question.
See State v. Arthur, 74 Ida. 251, 261 P.2d 135 (1953), in which certiorari was denied 347 U. S. 937, 98 L. Ed. 1087, 74 Sup. Ct. 627 (1954), and Maison v. Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, 314 F.2d 169 (9th Cir. 1963), in which certiorari was denied 375 U. S 829, 11 L. Ed. 2d 60, 84 Sup. Ct. 73 (1963).
Nevertheless, the important questions involved in the present two companion cases would seem to justify an authoritative determination of the constitutional status of these Indian treaties by the only tribunal competent to finally decide them.