The Navajo Nation's Claim for Injunction Is Inapplicable

The Navajo nation argues that the 1849 and 1868 treaties served as a promise by the federal government of sufficient water for the reservation to serve as a Navajo's permanent home. This is so according to the nation because of implied rights for water clarified by the court in 1908 in winters versus the United States involving the Fort Belknap reservation on Montana. Such rights are implied, the Supreme Court said, to fulfill the purposes of the reservation. Consequently, the Navajo nation argued that the U.S. owes an enforceable fiduciary duty to a tribe when a tribe can identify a specific rights creating or duty imposing.