Supreme Court of the United States

“ Much of the western United States is arid. Water has long been scarce, and the problem is getting worse. From 2000 through 2022, the region faced the driest 23-year period in more than a century and one of the driest periods in the last 1,200 years. And the situation is expected to grow more severe in future years. So even though the Navajo Reservation encompasses numerous water sources and the Tribe has the right to use needed water from those sources, the Navajos face the same water scarcity problem that many in the western United States face. ”

“ Indeed, when providing instructions to the Indian Peace Commission about how they should negotiate with the Navajo, the Secretary of the Interior discussed the possibility of agriculture as bearing on the appropriate size of the Tribe’s reservation. Unlike the Navajo, he thought, “ ‘ [w] ild Indians cannot at once be transformed into farmers. They must pass through the intermediate stage of herdsmen. They must first become pastoral, then agricultural.’ ” Id., at 269.
Despite all this, “ [f] or the Navajos the treaty signified not defeat, but victory, and not disappearance, but continuation.” ”

“ Determining how to do right by the competing interests of the country’s millions of citizens, however, is generally a job for the political branches, not courts.
By contrast, the term “trust” also has a well-understood meaning at law: a relationship in which a trustee has legally enforceable duties to manage a discrete trust corpus for certain beneficiaries. See Restatement (Third) of Trusts §2 (2001) . At times, the Federal Government has expressly created such discrete legal trusts for Indians—by, for example, placing parcels of land or specified sums of money into trust. ”

“ The Federal Government owes judicially enforceable duties to a tribe “only to the extent it expressly accepts those responsibilities.” Jicarilla, 564 U. S., at 177. Whether the Government has expressly accepted such obligations “must train on specific rights-creating or duty-imposing” language in a treaty, statute, or regulation. Navajo Nation, 537 U. S., at 506. That requirement follows from separation of powers principles. As this Court recognized in Jicarilla, Congress and the President exercise the “sovereign function” of organizing and managing “the Indian trust relationship.” ”

“ Further, where the federal government has “full responsibility” to manage a resource or “elaborate control” over that resource, the requisite “fiduciary relationship necessarily arises.” Id., at 224–225 (emphasis added) . Statements by the United States “recogniz [ing] ” a fiduciary duty, the Court explained, can help confirm as much too. Id., at 224.
Consider White Mountain Apache Tribe as well. There, this Court allowed a claim for money damages based on the United States’ breach of its “fiduciary duty to manage land and improvements” on a reservation. ”

“ In signing the Treaty of 1868, the Navajo agreed to “relinquish all right to occupy any territory outside their reservation.” Art. IX, 15 Stat. 670. In exchange, the Navajo were entitled to “make the reservation ... their permanent home.” Art. XIII, id., at 671. Even standing alone, that language creates enforceable water rights under Winters. As both parties surely would have recognized, no people can make a permanent home without the ability to draw on adequate water. Otherwise, the Tribe’s land would be “practically valueless,” “defeat [ing] the declared purpose” of the Treaty. ”

“ The Navajo often struggled to stay on the narrow tract of land the United States provided. Commission Report 9. In practice, the federal government often tolerated (and sometimes encouraged) the Navajo to live and tend to livestock off reservation to preserve their self-sufficiency. Kessell 271. These arrangements continued until the 1930s, when Congress first “enact [ed] legislation defining the exterior boundaries of the Navajo Reservation.” Id., at 272. Over the ensuing decades, Congress would go on to extend the reservation’s boundaries repeatedly. ”

“ While Winters involved a claim brought by the United States, the federal government asserted “the rights of the Indians” themselves. Id., at 576. This Court’s subsequent cases have confirmed as much. In United States v. Powers, 305 U. S. 527 (1939) , for instance, this Court cited Winters as authority for its holding that a different treaty impliedly “reserved” waters “for the equal benefit of tribal members.” ”

“ The second step of the analysis—using “trust principles” to sort out the damages the United States owes, Navajo II, 556 U. S., at 301—clearly has no purchase in this context. (Another tell that the Tucker Acts framework itself has no purchase.) But what about the first step? Historically, this Court’s cases have distinguished between regulatory schemes that create “bare trusts” (that cannot sustain actions for damages) and a “conventional” trust (that can make the government “liable in damages for breach” under the Tucker Acts) . White Mountain Apache Tribe, 537 U. S., at 473–474 ”

“ So Sherman tried to persuade the Navajo to relocate someplace else. Understanding the importance of water to the Navajo, he offered them assurances that other locations would have “plenty of water.” Treaty Record 5.
The Navajo would have none of it. Their lead negotiator, Barboncito, refused to “go to any other country except [his] own.” Ibid. Any place else, he said, could “turn out another Bosque Redondo.” Id., at 5–6. “ [O] utside [our] own country,” Barboncito told Sherman, “we cannot raise a crop, but in it we can raise a crop almost anywhere.” ”

“ See Arizona v. California, 376 U. S. 340. It allocated the Lower Basin Colorado River mainstream among various parties—including five other Tribes whose interests the United States did assert. See id., at 344–345. The decree also permitted the federal government to release water pursuant to certain “valid contracts” and applicable federal laws. Id., at 343; Brief for Federal Parties 7. But the Tribe’s rights remained in limbo. The United States never asserted any rights on the Navajo’s behalf; the Navajo never received an opportunity to assert them for themselves. ”

“ That exercise entails the application of familiar principles of contract interpretation. Those principles include an implied covenant of “the utmost good faith” and fair dealing between the parties. Sullivan v. Kidd, 254 U. S. 433, 439 (1921) . They include the doctrine of contra proferentem—the principle that any uncertainty in a contract should be construed against the drafting party. ”

“ Seminole Nation, 316 U. S., at 296–297; see also Cobell v. Norton, 240 F. 3d 1081, 1086 (CADC 2001) ; Shoshone Indian Tribe of Wind River Reservation v. United States, 364 F. 3d 1339, 1348 (CA Fed. 2004) . ”

“ See United States v. Jicarilla Apache Nation, 564 U. S. 162, 173–174, 177–178 (2011) ; United States v. Navajo Nation, 537 U. S. 488, 506–507 (2003) ; United States v. Mitchell, 445 U. S. 535, 542, 546 (1980) . ”