452
Opinion of the Court
Montana rule does not bear on tribal-court adjudicatory authority in cases involving nonmember defendants.
The statement stressed by petitioners and the United States was made in refutation of the argument that "Congress intended the diversity statute to limit the jurisdiction of the tribal courts." 480 U. S., at 18. The statement is preceded by three informative citations. The first citation points to the passage in Montana in which the Court advanced "the general proposition that the inherent sovereign powers of an Indian tribe do not extend to the activities of nonmembers of the tribe," 450 U. S., at 565, with two prime exceptions, id., at 565-566. The case cited second is Washington v. Confederated Tribes of Colville Reservation, 447 U. S. 134 (1980), a decision the Montana Court listed as illustrative of the first Montana exception, applicable to "non-members who enter consensual relationships with the tribe or its members," 450 U. S., at 565-566; the Court in Colville acknowledged inherent tribal authority to tax "non-Indians entering the reservation to engage in economic activity," 447 U. S., at 153. The third case noted in conjunction with the Iowa Mutual statement is Fisher v. District Court of Sixteenth Judicial Dist. of Mont., 424 U. S. 382 (1976) (per curiam), a decision the Montana Court cited in support of the second Montana exception, covering on-reservation activity of nonmembers bearing directly "on the political integrity, the economic security, or the health or welfare of the tribe." 450 U. S., at 566. The Court held in Fisher that a tribal court had exclusive jurisdiction over an adoption proceeding when all parties were members of the tribe and resided on its reservation. See 424 U. S., at 383, 389. State-court jurisdiction over such matters, the Court said, "plainly would interfere with the powers of self-government conferred upon the . . . Tribe and exercised through the Tribal Court." Id., at 387. The Court observed in Fisher that state courts may not exercise jurisdiction over disputes arising out of
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