400
Opinion of the Court
lenging the Secretary's decisions, and that the United States had moved to dismiss that action on various grounds, including sovereign immunity. "There will be time enough," the Court stated, "if any of these grounds for dismissal are sustained and not overturned on appellate review, to determine whether the boundary issues foreclosed by such action are nevertheless open for litigation in this Court." Id., at 638. The Court also held that the United States was barred from seeking water rights for the lands omitted from presentation in the proceedings leading to Arizona I; "principles of res judicata," we said, "advise against reopening the calculation of the amount of practicably irrigable acreage." 460 U. S., at 626. In 1984, in another supplemental decree, the Court again declared that water rights for all five reservations "shall be subject to appropriate adjustments by agreement or decree of this Court in the event that the boundaries of the respective reservations are finally determined." Arizona v. California, 466 U. S. 144, 145.
The District Court litigation proceeded with the participation of eight parties: the United States, the States of Arizona and California, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the Coachella Valley Water District, and the Quechan, Fort Mojave, and Colorado River Indian Tribes. The District Court rejected the United States' sovereign immunity defense; taking up the Fort Mojave Reservation matter first, the court voided the Secretary's determination of that reservation's boundaries. Metropolitan Water Dist. of S. Cal. v. United States, 628 F. Supp. 1018 (SD Cal. 1986). The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, however, accepted the United States' plea of sovereign immunity, and on that ground reversed and remanded with instructions to dismiss the entire case. Specifically, the Court of Appeals held that the Quiet Title Act, 28 U. S. C. § 2409a, preserved the United States' sovereign immunity from suits challenging the United States' title "to trust or restricted Indian lands," § 2409a(a), and therefore blocked recourse to the Dis-
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