Washington Tribal Treaties and Fishing Rights

This collection includes briefs digitized from the Gallagher Law Library's print collection related to the Washington State tribal fishing rights case United States v. Washington. The judge initially assigned to the case was George Boldt, who issued his first decision on February 12, 1974. The decision gave the tribes who were parties to the treaties the right to half the catch, with the tribes and the state managing the fishery together. This opinion became known to the public as the Boldt decision.

The briefs in this collection are from proceedings in the case brought before the Washington State Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. The briefs are broken down by the decade the matter was filed with the court. The search bar to the left allows researchers to run a keyword search across all briefs in the collection.

This collection also includes digitized briefs from other cases in Washington that involved tribal fishing rights under the section titled "Briefs from Other Washington Fishing Rights Cases."

You can find additional information about the Boldt decision and related materials in the Law Library's Indian & Tribal Law Research Guide.

In conjunction with the UW Law School's 36th Annual Indian Law Symposium, the Gallagher Law Library created a digital exhibit of the items in this collection plus law review articles that discuss tribal fishing rights.