Brendale v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakima Indian Nation Wilkinson v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakima Indian Nation County of Yakima v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakima Indian Nation

Decision Date29 June 1989
Docket Number87-1697 and 87-1711,Nos. 87-1622,s. 87-1622
PartiesPhilip BRENDALE, Petitioner, v. CONFEDERATED TRIBES AND BANDS OF THE YAKIMA INDIAN NATION, et al. Stanley WILKINSON, Petitioner, v. CONFEDERATED TRIBES AND BANDS OF THE YAKIMA INDIAN NATION, et al. COUNTY OF YAKIMA, et al., Petitioners, v. CONFEDERATED TRIBES AND BANDS OF THE YAKIMA INDIAN NATION et al
CourtU.S. Supreme Court
Syllabus

The treaty between the United States and the Yakima Indian Nation (Yakima Nation or Tribe) provided that the Tribe would retain its reservation for its "exclusive use and benefit," and that "no white man [shall] be permitted to reside upon the said reservation without [the Tribe's] permission." Much of the reservation is located in Yakima County, Washington. Roughly 80% of the reservation land is held in trust by the United States for the Tribe or its individual members, and the remaining 20% is owned in fee by Indian or non-Indian owners. Most of the fee land is found in three towns, and the rest is scattered throughout the reservation in a "checkerboard" pattern. The reservation is divided into two parts: a "closed area," which is so named because it has been closed to the general public, and an "open area," which is not so restricted. Only a small portion of the closed area consists of fee land, while almost half of the open area is fee land. The Tribe's zoning ordinance applies to all lands within the reservation, including fee lands owned by Indians or non-Indians, while the county's zoning ordinance applies to all lands within its boundaries, except for Indian trust lands. Petitioners Brendale and Wilkinson (hereinafter petitioners), who own land in the closed and open areas respectively, filed applications with the Yakima County Planning Department to develop their lands in ways not permitted by the Tribe's ordinance but permitted by the county ordinance. The department issued declarations to both petitioners which, in effect, authorized their developments, and the Tribe appealed the declarations to the county board of commissioners on the ground, inter alia, that the county had no zoning authority over the land in question. After the board concluded that the appeals were properly before it and issued decisions, the Tribe filed separate actions in District Court challenging the proposed developments and seeking declaratory judgments that the Tribe had ex- clusive authority to zone the properties at issue and injunctions barring any county action inconsistent with the Tribe's ordinance. The court held that the Tribe had exclusive jurisdiction over the Brendale property but lacked authority over the Wilkinson property, concluding that Brendale's proposed development, but not Wilkinson's, posed a threat to the Tribe's political integrity, economic security, and health and welfare, and therefore was impermissible under Montana v. United States, 450 U.S. 544, 101 S.Ct. 1245, 67 L.Ed.2d 493. The court also determined that the county was pre-empted from exercising concurrent zoning authority over closed area lands because its interests in regulating those lands were minimal while the Tribe's were substantial. The Court of Appeals consolidated the cases and affirmed as to the Brendale property but reversed as to the Wilkinson property. In upholding the Tribe's zoning authority, the court concluded that, because fee land is located throughout the reservation in a checkerboard pattern, denying the Tribe its right under its local governmental police power to zone fee land would destroy its capacity to engage in comprehensive planning.

Held: The judgment is affirmed in part and reversed in part.

828 F.2d 529 (CA9 1987): No. 87-1622, affirmed; Nos. 87-1697 and 87-1711, reversed.

Justice WHITE, joined by THE CHIEF JUSTICE, Justice SCALIA, and Justice KENNEDY, announced the judgment of the Court in Nos. 87-1697 and 87-1711, concluding that:

1. The Tribe does not have authority to zone fee lands owned by non-members within the reservation. Pp. 421-433.

(a) Any regulatory power the Tribe might have under its treaty with the United States canno apply to lands held in fee by non-Indians. Montana, 450 U.S., at 559, 101 S.Ct., at 1255. The Tribe no longer retains the "exclusive use and benefit" of such lands within the meaning of the treaty, since the Indian General Allotment Act allotted significant portions of the reservation, including the lands at issue, to individual members of the Tribe, and those lands subsequently passed, through sale or inheritance, to nonmembers such as petitioners. The Tribe's treaty rights must be read in light of those subsequent alienations, it being unlikely that Congress intended to subject non-Indian purchasers to tribal jurisdiction when an avowed purpose of the allotment policy was to destroy tribal government. Id., at 560, n. 9, 561, 101 S.Ct., at 1256, n. 9. The fact that the Allotment Act was repudiated in 1934 by the Indian Reorganization Act is irrelevant, since the latter Act did not restore exclusive use of the lands in question to the Tribe. Id., at 560, n. 9, 101 S.Ct., at 1256, n. 9. Pp. 422-425.

(b) Nor does the Tribe derive authority from its inherent sovereignty to impose its zoning ordinance on petitioners' lands. Such sovereignty generally extends only to what is necessary to protect tribal self- government or to control internal relations, and is divested to the extent it is inconsistent with a tribe's dependent status i.e., to the extent it involves the tribe's external relations with nonmembers—unless there has been an express congressional delegation of tribal power to the contrary. Montana, supra, at 564, 101 S.Ct., at 1257. Washington v. Confederated Tribes of Colville Indian Reservation, 447 U.S. 134, 153, 100 S.Ct. 2069, 2081, 65 L.Ed.2d 10; and United States v. Wheeler, 435 U.S. 313, 326, 98 S.Ct. 1079, 1087, 55 L.Ed.2d 303, reconciled. There is no contention here that Congress has expressly delegated to the Tribe the power to zone the fee lands of nonmembers. Pp. 425-428.

(c) Although Montana, supra, 450 U.S., at 566, 101 S.Ct., at 1258, recognized, as an exception to its general principle, that a tribe "may" retain inherent power to exercise civil authority over the conduct of non-Indians on fee lands within its reservation when that conduct threatens or has some direct effect on the tribe's political integrity, economic security, or health and welfare, that exception does not create tribal authority to zone reservation lands. The fact that the exception is prefaced by the word "may" indicates that a tribe's authority need not extend to all conduct having the specified effects, but, instead, depends on the circumstances. A literal application of the exception would make little sense in the present circumstances. To hold that the Tribe has authority to zone fee land when the activity on that land has the specified effects on Indian properties would mean that the authority would last only so long as the threatened use continued, would revert to the county when that use ceased, and, conceivably, could switch back and forth depending on what uses the county permitted, thereby engendering uncertainty that would further neither the Tribe's nor the county's interests and would be chaotic for landowners. Accordingly, Montana should be understood to generally prohibit tribes from regulating the use of fee lands by way of tribal ordinance or actions in the tribal courts, but to recognize, in the special circumstances of checkerboard ownership of reservation lands, a protectible tribal interest under federal law, defined in terms of a demonstrably serious impact by the challenged uses that imperils tribal political integrity, economic security, or health and welfare. Since the Supremacy Clause requires state and local governments, including the county's zoning authorities, to recognize and respect that interest in the course of their activities, the Tribe should have argued in the zoning proceedings, not that the county was without zoning authority over reservation fee land, but that its tribal interests wer imperiled. The District Court had jurisdiction to entertain the Tribe's suit, but, given that the county has jurisdiction to zone reservation fee lands, could enjoin county action only if the county failed to respect the Tribe's federal-law rights. Pp. 428-432.

2. In light of the District Court's findings that the county's exercise of zoning power over the Wilkinson property would have no direct effect on the Tribe and would not threaten its political integrity, economic security, or health and welfare, the judgment in No. 87-1697 and 87-1711 must be reversed. Pp. 432-433.

Justice STEVENS, joined by Justice O'CONNOR, announced the judgment of the Court in No. 87-1622 and concurred in the judgment in Nos. 87-1697 and 87-1711, concluding that:

1. The Tribe's power to exclude nonmembers from its reservation—which derived from its aboriginal sovereignty and the express provisions of its treaty with the United States necessarily includes the lesser power to regulate land use in the interest of protecting the tribal community. Although, at one time, the Tribe's power to exclude was virtually absolute, the General Allotment Act (Dawes Act) in some respects diminished tribal authority by providing for the allotment of reservation lands in severalty to resident Indians, who were eventually free to sell to nonmembers. While the Indian Reorganization Act repudiated that allotment policy, large portions of reservation lands were conveyed to nonmembers in the interim. To the extent that large portions of reservation land were sold in fee, such that the Tribe could no longer determine the region's essential character by setting conditions on entry to those parcels, the Tribe's legitimate interest in land-use regulation was also diminished....

To continue reading

Request your trial
150 cases
  • Andrews v. City of Mentor
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit)
    • August 25, 2021
    ...that area looks like. See Euclid , 272 U.S. at 388, 47 S.Ct. 114 ; Brendale v. Confederated Tribes & Bands of Yakima Indian Nation , 492 U.S. 408, 433–34, 109 S.Ct. 2994, 106 L.Ed.2d 343 (1989) (Stevens, J., concurring).Thus, the Trust has not sufficiently alleged that it is "similarity sit......
  • State of Nev. V. Hicks
    • United States
    • United States District Courts. 9th Circuit. United States District Courts. 9th Circuit. District of Nevada
    • September 30, 1996
    ...presumption. However, more recent cases have returned to Montana. See Brendale v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakima Indian Nation, 492 U.S. 408, 425, 109 S.Ct. 2994, 3005, 106 L.Ed.2d 343 (1989); South Dakota v. Bourland, 508 U.S. 679, 685-87 n. 6, 113 S.Ct. 2309, 2315 n. 6, 124 L......
  • Red Fox v. Hettich
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of South Dakota
    • January 13, 1993
    ...lands owned by Indians and those owned by non-Indians, as set forth in Montana and Brendale v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Indian Nation, 492 U.S. 408, 109 S.Ct. 2994, 106 L.Ed.2d 343 (1989), are meaningless. Therefore, a determination of whether there is tribal authority over n......
  • Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakima Nation v. County of Yakima
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit)
    • May 16, 1990
    ...still must be evaluated for their continuing legal relevance. Recently, in Brendale v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Indian Nation, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 2994, 3004, 106 L.Ed.2d 343 (1989) (Brendale ), the Supreme Court responded to a similar challenge by the Yakima Nation to t......
  • Request a trial to view additional results
19 books & journal articles

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT