## Facts

- The United States, an Indian agent, and Yakima tribal members sued a private landowner, Frank Taylor, seeking an injunction to protect treaty-based fishing access.
- By stipulation, the Tum Water Fishery on the Columbia River was an “ancient, usual, and accustomed” Yakima fishery used both before and after the 1855 treaty.
- Yakima members historically crossed adjacent lands to reach the fishery and used riverbanks to cure and dry fish.
- The 1855 treaty reserved to the Yakima the “right of taking fish at all usual and accustomed places, in common with the citizens of the territory.”
- After the treaty, Taylor and predecessors acquired U.S. patents to land adjoining the fishery under federal land laws; Taylor held fee title.
- Taylor fenced a large tract abutting the fishery, obstructing customary land approaches and allegedly preventing full enjoyment of the fishery right.
- Taylor asserted his fee ownership allowed fencing to protect crops notwithstanding the treaty.

## Issues

1. Whether the treaty fishing clause implied a right of access across adjacent private lands and reasonable use of riverbanks necessary to exercise the fishery right.
2. Whether later-issued U.S. land patents extinguished or limited the tribe’s earlier treaty-reserved fishing and access rights.
3. Whether equity could enjoin a private landowner from obstructing access needed to exercise treaty fishing rights.

## Decision

- The territorial supreme court reversed the district court’s decree for Taylor.
- The court held the treaty protected an enforceable fishery right that included necessary incidents of access and reasonable riverbank use.
- The court concluded Taylor’s fence, to the extent it obstructed customary access and interfered with traditional bank use, conflicted with the treaty.
- The court determined Taylor’s patented title was held subject to the prior treaty-reserved rights.
- The court granted equitable relief, ultimately in the form of a perpetual injunction preventing obstruction of the access way needed for the fishery.

## Legal Principles

- Treaty fishing clauses reserving the “right of taking fish at all usual and accustomed places, in common with” non-Indians protect a meaningful right, not a merely formal one.
- A treaty-secured right to fish includes implied rights of reasonable access and ancillary use of nearby lands (such as riverbanks for curing/drying) when necessary to make the fishery right effective.
- Later federal land patents and general land-disposal statutes do not abrogate prior treaty rights absent clear congressional intent; patents are construed subject to existing treaty burdens.
- Injunctive relief is appropriate to prevent ongoing or repeated interference with continuing treaty rights.

## Conclusion

The court enforced the Yakima treaty’s “usual and accustomed” fishing right as including implied access across adjoining patented lands and related bank use, and it restrained a private landowner from fencing in a manner that would defeat the practical exercise of the treaty-protected fishery.


United States v. Taylor, 13 P. 333 (Wash. Terr. 1887)