Washington v. Washington State Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Association
United States Supreme Court
443 U.S. 658 (1979)
Nineteenth-century treaties promised Pacific Northwest tribes the continued right to take fish, in common with others, on ceded lands; when the United States (plaintiff) sued to enforce that right against Washington's (defendant) more limited interpretation (mere opportunity to fish, without license fees), the district court held the tribes entitled to 45-50 percent of harvestable fish and ordered the state to regulate accordingly, which Washington resisted, prompting a series of enforcement orders that the court of appeals modified and affirmed before the state sought Supreme Court review.
Whether a treaty between the United States and an Indian tribe must be interpreted as the tribe would have understood it at the time the treaty was signed.