Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United States
United States Supreme Court
424 U.S. 800 (1976)
The United States (plaintiff) sued roughly 1,000 private water users (defendants) in federal district court asserting reserved water rights for itself and Indian tribes over Colorado rivers, invoking the McCarran Amendment allowing the government to be joined in state-law water-rights suits; shortly after filing, a defendant sought to have the same claims heard in the parallel state water court, and other defendants moved to dismiss the federal suit for lack of jurisdiction. The district court dismissed based on the abstention doctrine without resolving the jurisdictional question, and the Tenth Circuit reversed, holding jurisdiction existed under 28 U.S.C. § 1345 and abstention was inappropriate.
Whether federal courts may defer jurisdiction to concurrent state proceedings, even where the doctrine of abstention does not apply, for reasons of wise judicial administration.