Pillsbury Partner Opines on Native American Supreme Court Petitions to Watch

One such case is the state of Washington’s challenge to a Ninth Circuit ruling ordering states to replace culverts to protect tribal salmon fishing rights. The case, Washington v. U.S., pits the treaty rights of several tribes against the potential multibillion dollar cost to the state of building hundreds of new water structures. A Ninth Circuit panel ruled in 2016 that the culverts violate federal treaties with several tribes by degrading fish habitat and decimating fish populations.

According to Green, the case is important for tribes not just for its impact on tribal fishing and hunting rights but for treaty rights overall. The granting of cert would give the justices “the opportunity to wrestle [with] the difficult issue of how to fashion specific, present-day remedies for historic, broadly worded treaty rights,” he said.