## Facts

- The Puyallup Tribe and its chairwoman challenged Washington’s regulation of treaty fishing for steelhead trout under the Treaty of Medicine Creek.
- After prior related Supreme Court decisions, a Washington trial court entered a final judgment asserting authority to regulate tribal fishing on and off the reservation.
- The judgment limited the annual number of steelhead tribal members could take by net in the Puyallup River.
- The judgment also ordered the Tribe to submit a list of members authorized to fish under the treaty and to provide weekly catch reports to state officials and the court.
- The Washington Supreme Court affirmed with a minor modification.
- The Tribe sought Supreme Court review, raising sovereign immunity, the State’s authority over on-reservation fishing, and whether the catch limits were justified by conservation necessity.

## Issues

1. Whether tribal sovereign immunity required vacating the portions of the state-court judgment entered against the Tribe as an entity.
2. Whether the Treaty of Medicine Creek gave the Tribe or its members an exclusive right to take steelhead within the reservation such that the State could not regulate those catches.
3. Whether the steelhead catch limits imposed on treaty fishers were necessary for conservation and otherwise valid under the controlling federal standard.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court held that, absent waiver or consent, a state court may not exercise jurisdiction to grant relief against a recognized tribe as a tribe.
- The Court vacated the portions of the judgment that imposed obligations or relief directly on the Tribe as an entity (including reporting/listing requirements directed to the Tribe).
- The Court held sovereign immunity did not prevent adjudication and regulation of the rights of individual tribal members over whom the state court had personal jurisdiction.
- The Court rejected the claim of an exclusive treaty right to steelhead “passing through” the reservation and reaffirmed that treaty fishing is subject to reasonable, nondiscriminatory conservation regulation.
- The Court upheld the steelhead catch limitation, concluding the state courts applied the proper conservation-necessity standard and the record supported the restriction.

## Legal Principles

- A federally recognized tribe is immune from state-court relief absent an effective waiver or congressional authorization; immunity requires vacatur of relief directed at the tribe as a political entity.
- Tribal sovereign immunity does not bar state-court adjudication of individual tribal members’ rights when personal jurisdiction exists, including enforcement of valid conservation measures.
- Treaty language guaranteeing fishing “at all usual and accustomed places” “in common with” others does not create an exclusive tribal monopoly over the fishery.
- States may regulate treaty fishing only through reasonable, nondiscriminatory measures that are necessary for conservation, including limits required to achieve fair allocation between treaty and non-treaty fishers.

## Conclusion

The Court partially vacated the state judgment to the extent it imposed relief against the Puyallup Tribe itself, but otherwise affirmed Washington’s authority to enforce nondiscriminatory, conservation-based limits on individual tribal members’ steelhead fishing under the Treaty of Medicine Creek.


Puyallup Tribe, Inc. v. Dep’t of Game of State of Wash., 433 U.S. 165 (1977)