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Opinion of the Court
Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the adjudicatory authority of tribal courts over personal injury actions against defendants who are not tribal members. Specifically, we confront this question: When an accident occurs on a portion of a public highway maintained by the State under a federally granted right-of-way over Indian reservation land, may tribal courts entertain a civil action against an allegedly negligent driver and the driver's employer, neither of whom is a member of the tribe?
Such cases, we hold, fall within state or federal regulatory and adjudicatory governance; tribal courts may not entertain claims against nonmembers arising out of accidents on state highways, absent a statute or treaty authorizing the tribe to govern the conduct of nonmembers on the highway in question. We express no view on the governing law or proper forum when an accident occurs on a tribal road within a reservation.
I
In November 1990, petitioner Gisela Fredericks and respondent Lyle Stockert were involved in a traffic accident on a portion of a North Dakota state highway running through the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. The highway strip crossing the reservation is a 6.59-mile stretch of road, open to the public, affording access to a federal water resource project. North Dakota maintains the road under a right-of-lows: Grant Woods of Arizona, Daniel E. Lungren of California, Gale A. Norton of Colorado, Alan G. Lance of Idaho, Scott Harshbarger of Massachusetts, Mike Moore of Mississippi, Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada, Dennis C. Vacco of New York, Mark Barnett of South Dakota, Jan Graham of Utah, Christine O. Gregoire of Washington, James E. Doyle of Wisconsin, and William U. Hill of Wyoming; for Lake County, Montana, et al. by Jon Metropoulos; for the American Trucking Associations, Inc., et al. by Michele Odorizzi, Andrew J. Pincus, and Daniel R. Barney; and for the Council of State Governments et al. by Richard Ruda and Charles F. Lettow.
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