448
Opinion of the Court
in trust for, a tribe or its members. Montana holds sway, petitioners say, only with respect to alienated reservation land owned in fee simple by non-Indians. We address these arguments in turn.
A
We begin with petitioners' contention that National Farmers and Iowa Mutual broadly confirm tribal-court civil jurisdiction over claims against nonmembers arising from occurrences on any land within a reservation. We read our precedent differently. National Farmers and Iowa Mutual, we conclude, are not at odds with, and do not displace, Montana. Both decisions describe an exhaustion rule allowing tribal courts initially to respond to an invocation of their jurisdiction; neither establishes tribal-court adjudica-tory authority, even over the lawsuits involved in those cases. Accord, Brendale v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Nation, 492 U. S. 408, 427, n. 10 (1989) (opinion of White, J.).
National Farmers involved a federal-court challenge to a tribal court's jurisdiction over a personal injury action initiated on behalf of a Crow Indian minor against a Montana school district. The accident-in-suit occurred when the minor was struck by a motorcycle in an elementary school parking lot. The school occupied land owned by the State within the Crow Indian Reservation. See 471 U. S., at 847. The school district and its insurer sought a federal-court injunction to stop proceedings in the Crow Tribal Court. See id., at 848. The District Court granted the injunction, but the Court of Appeals reversed, concluding that federal courts lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to entertain such a case. See id., at 848-849.
We reversed the Court of Appeals' judgment and held that federal courts have authority to determine, as a matter "arising under" federal law, see 28 U. S. C. § 1331, whether a tribal court has exceeded the limits of its jurisdiction. See 471 U. S., at 852-853. We further held, however, that the fed-
Page: Index Previous 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007