## Facts

- The United States sued as trustee for the Klamath Tribes to determine federal reserved water rights associated with reservation lands in Oregon’s Klamath Basin.
- The Klamath Tribes intervened to assert treaty-based and aboriginal water rights tied to hunting and fishing.
- Defendants included Indian and non-Indian landowners within the former reservation (including Ben Adair) whose claimed rights could conflict with tribal rights.
- The State of Oregon intervened because recognition of federal rights would affect state-law appropriation and administration.
- The district court entered a declaratory judgment defining the existence, nature, scope, and priority of the Tribes’ reserved rights, but left quantification to Oregon’s Klamath Basin Adjudication and retained continuing jurisdiction to construe and enforce the judgment.
- Multiple parties appealed; the Ninth Circuit affirmed as modified.

## Issues

1. Whether the federal court should decline jurisdiction under Colorado River abstention in favor of Oregon’s state water adjudication.
2. Whether the Klamath Tribes hold federal reserved water rights implied by treaty and aboriginal use sufficient to support treaty-protected hunting and fishing, and the priority date of any such rights.
3. Whether the Klamath Termination Act extinguished or limited the Tribes’ reserved water rights.
4. What water rights, if any, individual Indian and non-Indian successors to former tribal or allotment lands possess, and how those rights relate to the Tribes’ reserved rights and to federal claims asserted by the United States.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit held the district court did not abuse its discretion by exercising federal jurisdiction and declining to dismiss or stay under Colorado River.
- The court held the Klamath Tribes possess federal reserved instream water rights implied from the 1864 treaty and aboriginal use, sufficient to maintain treaty-protected hunting and fishing.
- The court held the Tribes’ reserved rights carry a priority date of “time immemorial.”
- The court held the Klamath Termination Act did not abrogate the Tribes’ reserved water rights absent a clear expression of congressional intent.
- The court generally upheld recognition of certain water rights held by individual Indian and non-Indian landowners for beneficial uses, while modifying aspects of the judgment concerning federal claims by the United States as successor to allottees to prevent duplicative or expanded reserved-right theories.
- The judgment was affirmed as modified; certiorari was denied.

## Legal Principles

- Federal courts may adjudicate tribal reserved water rights governed by federal law notwithstanding parallel state adjudication; Colorado River abstention is discretionary and not required where strong federal interests predominate.
- Under Winters and Indian treaty construction rules, treaty guarantees of hunting and fishing may imply reservation of sufficient water to make those rights effective, including instream protection necessary to sustain fisheries and related resources.
- Reserved rights may predate the reservation’s formal creation when grounded in aboriginal use recognized by treaty, supporting a “time immemorial” priority against later appropriators.
- Treaty-based reserved rights are not extinguished by congressional action without a clear statement of intent; termination legislation does not abrogate such rights by implication.
- Water rights held by successors in interest to former tribal or allotment lands may exist based on appurtenance, historical use, or state-law appropriation, but remain subordinate to senior tribal reserved rights where the treaty requires water to sustain protected resources.
- The United States has standing and fiduciary authority to litigate and protect tribal reserved water rights as trustee.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit recognized the Klamath Tribes’ senior, treaty-based reserved instream water rights—prior in time to all later appropriations—and held those rights survived termination legislation, while permitting certain successor landowner rights to exist in a manner subordinate to the Tribes’ entitlement and confirming a federal forum to define core aspects of those federal rights.


United States v. Adair, 723 F.2d 1394 (9th Cir. 1983)