Arizona v. California et al.
460 U.S. 605 (1983)
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Rule of Law:
A final decree from the Supreme Court in an original jurisdiction case will not be reopened to relitigate factual issues that were fully and fairly litigated, even when the Court retains jurisdiction to modify the decree, absent a showing of changed circumstances or unforeseen issues not previously litigated.
Facts:
- Five Indian Tribes—the Colorado River, Fort Mojave, Chemehuevi, Cocopah, and Fort Yuma (Quechan)—inhabit reservations in the arid Colorado River Basin.
- The United States government created these reservations, which implied a reservation of water from the Colorado River sufficient to fulfill the purposes of the reservations.
- The primary purpose of the reservations was to support an agrarian society, making the amount of 'practicably irrigable acreage' the basis for quantifying the Tribes' water rights.
- In the initial litigation, the United States, acting as the Tribes' representative, presented evidence to establish the amount of practicably irrigable acreage on each reservation.
- Years later, it was discovered that the government's initial calculations had failed to include certain irrigable lands within the reservations' established boundaries ('omitted lands').
- Additionally, separate from the omitted lands, the boundaries of several reservations were expanded after 1964 through secretarial orders and court judgments ('boundary lands').
Procedural Posture:
- In 1952, Arizona filed an original action in the U.S. Supreme Court against California to determine rights to the waters of the Colorado River.
- The United States intervened in the action, seeking water rights on behalf of federal establishments and five Indian Tribes.
- The Court appointed a Special Master (Simon Rifkind), who conducted lengthy proceedings and issued a report recommending water allocations.
- In its 1963 opinion, the Supreme Court largely adopted the Master's report, quantifying the Tribes' water rights based on 'practicably irrigable acreage'.
- The Court's 1964 decree formalized this allocation but included Article IX, retaining jurisdiction for future modifications, and left open the final determination of certain reservation boundaries.
- In 1977-1978, the five Tribes moved to intervene, and the United States filed a motion to amend the decree, seeking additional water rights for 'omitted' and 'boundary' lands.
- In a 1979 supplemental decree resolving other matters, the Court referred the motions concerning the omitted and boundary lands to a new Special Master (Elbert P. Tuttle).
- Special Master Tuttle issued a final report recommending that the Court grant the additional water rights for both omitted and boundary lands, to which Arizona, California, and several state agencies filed exceptions.
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Issue:
Does the Supreme Court's retention of jurisdiction in its 1964 decree, which allocated water rights, permit the modification of that decree to grant additional water rights to Indian Tribes for irrigable lands that were not claimed in the original proceedings?
Opinions:
Majority - Justice White
No, the Court's retention of jurisdiction does not permit modification of the decree to account for the 'omitted lands'. The principles of finality preclude the relitigation of the factual determination of practicably irrigable acreage, an issue that was fully and fairly litigated in the original proceedings. Article IX of the 1964 decree, which retains jurisdiction, was intended as a safety net for unforeseen circumstances or to resolve reserved questions, not to correct errors or allow a retrial of settled factual issues. The strong interest in the certainty of water rights, upon which states and private parties have relied, outweighs the desire to correct a past oversight. The United States had full authority to represent the Tribes and bind them to the litigation's outcome, and its representation was not legally inadequate. However, for 'boundary lands' whose status has been 'finally determined' by a subsequent judicial decree, water rights can be adjusted, but not for lands whose boundaries were changed only by unilateral secretarial orders, as those are not 'final determinations' binding on the states.
Concurring-in-part-and-dissenting-in-part - Justice Brennan
Yes, the Court should exercise its power to modify the decree. The refusal to reconsider the quantification of the Tribes' water rights creates a manifest injustice. The litigation was not truly final when the claims were raised, as the quantification of all 'present perfected rights' was not completed until 1979. Therefore, principles of finality are less compelling than the need to correct a clear error that resulted from the United States' failure to fulfill its fiduciary duty to the Tribes. The Tribes, who were not parties to the original suit, will lose valuable rights forever due to no fault of their own. Furthermore, correcting the decree would cause little, if any, prejudice to the states, as they are not currently using the full allocation and the Tribes are not yet able to use all the water they were already awarded.
Analysis:
This decision establishes a strong presumption of finality for factual determinations in the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction decrees, particularly in complex water rights cases. It significantly narrows the scope of retained jurisdiction clauses, limiting their application to changed circumstances or new issues rather than the correction of past litigation errors. The ruling emphasizes the importance of certainty in property and water rights over achieving a perfectly accurate result, placing a heavy burden on parties to present their entire case exhaustively in the first instance. For future cases, it signals that parties, including the U.S. government acting as a trustee for Indian Tribes, cannot easily get a 'second bite at the apple' to fix factual omissions from a prior, concluded phase of litigation.
