Cite as: 523 U. S. 696 (1998)
Opinion of Souter, J.
from any course the Federal Rules and that court's thorough grasp on this litigation lead it to take" when the case is returned to it, ante, at 719, the Court's conclusions effectively thwart application of one of the principal rules of restitution that should be brought to bear on this case. It is from the resulting truncation of the District Court's discretion that I respectfully dissent.
Although both Montana and the Tribe may tax the value of the coal on its extraction or severance from the land, ante, at 714-715, Montana may tax only to a certain economic point. Beyond that point, as between Montana and the Tribe, only the Tribe may add to the tax burden. When a taxing authority like Montana has taxed unlawfully to the prejudice of another jurisdiction that should have received the revenue in payment of its own lawful tax, accepted principles of restitution entitle the latter government to claim disgorgement of what the former had no business receiving. At the most general level, a "person who has been unjustly enriched at the expense of another is required to make restitution to the other." Restatement of Restitution § 1, p. 12 (1937). At a more specific level, there is the rule that "[w]here a person has paid money . . . to another in the erroneous belief, induced by mistake of fact, that he owed a duty to the other so to do, whereas such duty was owed to a third person, the transferee . . . is under a duty of restitution to the third person." Id., § 126(1), at 514. The Supreme Court of Montana has accordingly held, as the majority recognizes, ante, at 715-716, that as between two jurisdictions claiming to tax the same transaction, one that collected taxes without lawful authority must surrender them to the other one, entitled to impose them, Valley County v. Thomas, 109 Mont. 345, 97 P. 2d 345 (1939); see also, e. g., College Park v. Eastern Airlines, Inc., 250 Ga. 741, 742-744, 300 S. E. 2d 513, 515-516 (1983) (invoking "general equitable principles of restitution," including § 126(1), to hold that one municipality may recover taxes mistakenly paid to another); Indian Hill v. Atkins, 153
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