Cite as: 530 U. S. 392 (2000)
Opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.
termined that the Secretary's order was subject to challenge and encouraged the parties to assert their legal claims and defenses in another forum. Consequently, it is likely that the State parties' res judicata claim would not have been resolved in Arizona II even if it had been raised.
The State parties did expressly raise the defense of res judicata in their 1989 motion, and neither the United States nor the Tribe objected to its consideration. The Tribe contested the merits of the State parties' res judicata claim and argued that its water rights' claim was not precluded. In so doing, the Tribe asserted that the State parties had not argued res judicata during the Arizona II proceedings. But neither the Tribe nor the United States contended, in response to the State parties' motion, that the Court could not decide the res judicata issue because it was not timely raised. We granted the motion, and Special Master McGarr considered the claim on the merits. Under these circumstances, I believe that the State parties did not lose their res judicata defense by failing to assert it in the earlier proceedings.
The Court also concludes that this Court's 1979 and 1984 supplemental decrees "anticipated" that the boundary dispute would be finally resolved in some forum. See ante, at 411. To reach this conclusion, the Court reads too much into the simple language of the supplemental decrees and ignores language in our Arizona II opinion. The supplemental decrees stated that water rights for the 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." 1984 Supplemental Decree, Art. II(D)(5), Arizona v. California, 466 U. S. 144, 145 (1984); 1979 Supplemental Decree, Art. II(D)(5), Arizona v. California, 439 U. S. 419, 421 (1979) (per curiam). These decrees can best be interpreted as merely providing that the reservation's water quantity can be adjusted if the boundary changes, without deciding whether
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