## Facts

- An 1864 treaty established a reservation for the Klamath, Modoc, and Yahooskin Band and secured the Tribe “the exclusive right of taking fish in the streams and lakes, included in said reservation”; prior interpretations treated the treaty as also protecting hunting and trapping within the reservation.
- The treaty did not expressly reserve any hunting or fishing rights outside the reservation.
- Surveys later mistakenly excluded substantial acreage from the reservation; after a boundary determination, the Tribe and the United States entered a 1901 cession agreement, ratified by Congress.
- In the 1901 agreement, the Tribe conveyed to the United States “all their claim, right, title and interest” in the ceded lands, while also providing that nothing in the agreement would deprive the Tribe of treaty “benefits” not inconsistent with the agreement.
- Tribal members continued to hunt and fish on the ceded lands for many years, apparently without Oregon asserting regulatory authority.
- In 1982, the Tribe sued Oregon wildlife regulators in federal court to enjoin state interference with tribal hunting and fishing on ceded lands that remained in federal ownership (excluding lands that became privately owned).
- The district court granted summary judgment to the Tribe, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed; the Supreme Court granted review.

## Issues

1. Whether the 1864 treaty’s reservation-based hunting and fishing rights included a continuing exclusive off-reservation right on lands later removed from the reservation and ceded in 1901, immunizing the Tribe from state regulation.
2. Whether the 1901 cession agreement’s conveyance and savings clause preserved any treaty-based exclusive right to hunt and fish on the ceded lands free from state regulation.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit (6–2; Justice Powell did not participate).
- The Court held that the Tribe’s treaty-based exclusive right to hunt and fish on the reservation did not survive, after the 1901 cession and reservation diminution, as a special right to be free from state regulation on ceded lands outside the reservation.
- The Court concluded that the 1864 treaty’s exclusivity was geographically confined to the reservation and did not create an off-reservation exclusive right.
- The Court read the 1901 agreement’s broad conveyance language as relinquishing any exclusive-use rights in the ceded lands that would be inconsistent with state regulatory authority.
- The Court held the savings clause did not preserve an exclusive off-reservation immunity from state regulation because the treaty did not grant such off-reservation rights and, in any event, such exclusivity would be inconsistent with the 1901 agreement.
- The Court treated Oregon’s historical nonenforcement and the Tribe’s continued use as insufficient to establish a treaty-based exemption from state regulation.
- The dissent would have applied Indian treaty construction canons to read the 1901 agreement as not clearly extinguishing the Tribe’s traditional hunting and fishing practices on the ceded lands.

## Legal Principles

- Treaty rights are interpreted by text and history, but courts will not infer an exclusive off-reservation right to be free from state regulation when treaty language limits exclusivity to the reservation.
- Where a treaty ties exclusive hunting or fishing to reservation lands, a later congressional-ratified cession that diminishes the reservation can end exclusive-use rights in lands removed from the reservation absent a clear reservation of continued off-reservation exclusivity.
- A conveyance of “all claim, right, title and interest” may be read to relinquish special use rights in ceded territory that would constrain state sovereignty, unless clearly preserved.
- A savings clause preserving treaty “benefits” does not preserve an exclusive off-reservation immunity from state regulation when the asserted right is not granted by the treaty or would conflict with the cession agreement.
- Longstanding practice and state acquiescence do not, without supporting treaty or statutory text, create a legally enforceable exemption from state regulation.

## Conclusion

The Court held that the Tribe’s exclusive treaty-based hunting and fishing rights were confined to the reservation and did not persist on lands ceded under the 1901 agreement as a special immunity from Oregon’s fish and wildlife regulation once those lands lay outside the reservation boundaries.


Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife v. Klamath Indian Tribe, 473 U.S. 753 (1985)