482
Opinion of the Court
functioning of the judicial system, by putting opposing parties and appellate courts on notice of the issues to be litigated and encouraging repose of those that are not. Fairness of notice does not turn on the interlocutory character of the orders at issue here, and while the interest in repose is somewhat diminished when a final appeal may yet raise the issue, it is still considerable owing to the indefinite duration of the injunctions. Preliminary injunctions are, after all, appealable as of right, see 28 U. S. C. § 1292(a)(1), and the timely filing requirements of Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure 4 and 26(b) squarely cover such appeals. Neither those Rules nor the interests animating the cross-appeal requirement offer any leeway for such an exception.
III
Before the District Court, petitioners asserted simply that the Tribal Court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over Price-Anderson Act claims in respondents' tribal-court suits, see App. 14a, 15a, 37a, and sought injunctive relief.4 The District Court responded by enjoining respondents from pursuing any Price-Anderson claims in Tribal Court, and because they did not appeal the injunction, we have no occasion
4 At oral argument before the Court of Appeals, petitioners introduced for the first time the essence of the theory on which they now rely, that the Tribal Courts somehow lacked jurisdiction over Price-Anderson claims because under Strate v. A-1 Contractors, 520 U. S. 438 (1997), a tribal court has jurisdiction over a nonmember only where the tribe has regulatory jurisdiction with respect to the matter at issue, and Congress has completely occupied the field of nuclear regulation. See 136 F. 3d 610, 618, n. 5 (CA9 1998); Brief for Petitioners 29-33. But Strate dealt with claims against nonmembers arising on state highways, and "express[ed] no view on the governing law or proper forum when an accident occurs on a tribal road within a reservation." Strate, supra, at 442. By contrast, the events in question here occurred on tribal lands. 136 F. 3d, at 618, n. 5.
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