Klickitat County, Washington, et al. v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation

This case concerns a roughly 190-square-mile tract of land in southwestern Washington, which is a mostly non-Indian ranching community adjacent to the Yakama Indian Reservation. In 1904, Congress acted to settle a longstanding dispute between the United States and the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation over the boundary established by the 1855 treaty setting aside the Reservation. Act of Dec. 21, 1904, ch 22, 33 Stat. 595

1. (1904 Act). In doing so, Congress adopted the “findings” of a federal surveyor, E.C. Barnard, concerning the disputed boundary. Id. § 1, 33 Stat. at

2. It is undisputed that the area at issue lies outside Barnard’s boundary. In 1913, this Court itself confirmed the boundary line drawn by Barnard—and adopted by Congress—in Northern Pacific Railway Co. v. United States, 227 U.S. 355, 365-66 (1913). In the decision below, the Ninth Circuit refused to give effect to the boundary line adopted by 1904 Act and recognized by this Court’s 1913 decision. Instead, based on its interpretation of the 1855 treaty establishing the Reservation—some 60 years before Congress acted to settle the disputed boundary—the Ninth Circuit held that the Reservation includes the tract of land at issue. In so holding, the Ninth Circuit also disregarded a physical call in the treaty stating that the boundary of the Reservation runs along the divide of the “Klickatat and Pisco Rivers,” which indisputably is located some fifteen miles north of the area at issue. The questions presented are:

3. Whether, or in what circumstances, a court may override an Act of Congress adopting a boundary for an Indian reservation, and set its own boundary.