Cite as: 523 U. S. 696 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
Tribe a tax equal to the State's then-existing taxes, less any tax payments Westmoreland was required to make to the State and its subdivisions. See App. 135-141; see also id., at 329-330. The 1982 agreement achieved, prospectively, the federal permission the Tribe had long sought. It allowed the Tribe to have an approved tax in place so that, if successful in the litigation against Montana, the Tribe could claim for itself any tax amounts Westmoreland might be ordered to pay into the District Court's registry pendente lite. Correspondingly, the agreement enabled Westmoreland to avoid double taxation, present and future, and it absolved the company from any tax payment obligation to the Tribe for the 1976-1982 period. App. to Pet. for Cert. 32-35.
In November 1982, in keeping with their amended lease agreement, the Tribe and Westmoreland jointly filed a motion to deposit severance tax payments into the District Court's registry, pending resolution of the controversy over Montana's authority to tax coal mined at the ceded strip. Id., at 32. In January 1983, the District Court granted the motion. Thereafter, Westmoreland paid the Montana severance tax into the court's registry in lieu of paying the State. The District Court granted the same interim relief, in November 1987, for the gross proceeds tax. Id., at 35, 36. In ordering the registry deposits, which ultimately would be paid over, with interest, to the prevailing party (Montana or the Tribe), the District Court recalled the Ninth Circuit's observation that "the Tribe is apparently not entitled to any refund of taxes previously paid by Westmoreland to Montana." App. 213 (citing Crow I, 650 F. 2d, at 1113, n. 13). The provisional remedy attended to that concern; it "preserve[d the District Court's] power . . . [to give post-1982] tax moneys to their rightful owner after a trial on the merits." App. 215.
In June 1983, the United States intervened on behalf of the Tribe to protect its interests as trustee of the coal upon
705
Page: Index Previous 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007