722
Opinion of Souter, J.
Ohio St. 562, 566-567, 93 N. E. 2d 22, 25 (1950) (citing § 126(1) and authorizing suit by one town to recover taxes paid to another); School Dist. No. 6 v. School Dist. No. 5, 255 Mich. 428, 429, 238 N. W. 214, 215 (1931) (authorizing suit to recover taxes paid to wrong school district because "[t]hrough breach of the law, plaintiff and its taxpayers have been deprived of their just due, and defendant has money which in equity and good conscience belongs to plaintiff"); Balkan v. Buhl, 158 Minn. 271, 279, 197 N. W. 266, 269 (1924) ("[T]o permit defendant to retain any of the taxes wrongfully collected by it from its neighbor's territory, would be to permit it to benefit from its own wrong . . . . Such a result is so objectional as to require no discussion beyond its bare statement"). Under Montana's own law, then, reflecting accepted principles of restitution, the Tribe raises at least a facially valid claim when it seeks disgorgement of the excess taxes collected by the State in the period before 1983.
Although the Court seeks to differentiate this case from the ambit of Valley County, the proffered distinctions come up short. First, it is not to the point that in Valley County only one jurisdiction could validly tax, whereas here both may do so, ante, at 716. The remaining element of the Tribe's claim against Montana goes only to the state revenues that might be found to have exceeded the limit of valid state taxation; beyond the point at which state taxation became excessive the State had no authority, while the Tribe did. (It is true, of course, that in this case the respective spheres of the two taxing jurisdictions are bounded by an economic, not a geographic, line. But that distinction does not affect the principle involved, and the Court does not argue otherwise.)
Second, Valley County is not distinguishable on the ground that the governmental claimant there had an enforceable licensing and revenue scheme in place, whereas the Tribe "could not have taxed lessee Westmoreland during the period in question, for the Interior Department (whether
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