author:
Mr. Justice Stevens
     Mr. Justice Brennan, Mr. Justice White, MR. Justice Blackmun,

text:
    BISHOP v. WOOD et al.

    No. 74-1303.
    Argued March 1, 1976
    Decided June 10, 1976

      See 498 F. 2d 1341.
    SteveNS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which B.URGEr, C. J., and Stewart, Powell, and Rehnqtjist, JJ., joined. BreN-NAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Marshall, J., joined, post, p. 350. White, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BreN-nan, Marshall, and BlackmüN, JJ., joined, post, p. 355. Blacic-muh, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BrenNAN, J., joined, post, p. 361.

      Norman B. Smith argued the cause and filed briefs for petitioner.

      Charles E. Burgin argued the cause and filed a brief for respondents.

        Stephen J. Poliak and Richard M. Sharp filed a brief for the Coalition of American Public Employees as amicus curiae urging reversal.

   Mr. Justice Stevens

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Acting on the recommendation of the Chief of Police, the City Manager of Marion, N. C., terminated petitioner's employment as a policeman without affording him a hearing to determine the sufficiency of the cause for his discharge. Petitioner brought suit contending that since a city ordinance classified him as a “permanent employee,” he had a constitutional right to a pretermin-ation hearing. During pretrial discovery petitioner was advised that his dismissal was based on a failure to follow certain orders, poor attendance at police training classes, causing low morale, and conduct unsuited to an officer. Petitioner and several other police officers filed affidavits essentially denying the truth of these charges. The District Court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The Court of Appeals affirmed, and we granted certiorari, 423 U. S. 890.

The questions for us to decide are (1) whether petitioner’s employment status was a property interest protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and (2) assuming that the explanation for his discharge was false, whether that false explanation deprived him of an interest in liberty protected by that Clause.

I

Petitioner was employed by the city of Marion as a probationary policeman on June 9, 1969. After six months he became a permanent employee. He was dismissed on March 31, 1972. He claims that he had either an express or an implied right to continued employment.

A city ordinance provides that a permanent employee may be discharged if he fails to perform work up to the standard of his classification, or if he is negligent, inefficient, or unfit to perform his duties. Petitioner first contends that even though the ordinance does not expressly so provide, it should be read to prohibit discharge for any other reason, and therefore to confer tenure on all permanent employees. In addition, he contends that his period of service, together with his “permanent” classification, gave him a sufficient expectancy of continued employment to constitute a protected property interest.

A property interest in employment can, of course, be created by ordinance, or by an implied contract. In either case, however, the sufficiency of the claim of entitlement must be decided by reference to state law. The North Carolina Supreme Court has held that an enforceable expectation of continued public employment in that State can exist only if the employer, by statute or contract, has actually granted some form of guarantee. Still v. Lance, 279 N. C. 254, 182 S. E. 2d 403 (1971). Whether such a guarantee has been given can be determined only by an examination of the particular statute or ordinance in question.

On its face the ordinance on which petitioner relies may fairly be read as conferring such a guarantee. However, such a reading is not the only possible interpretation; the ordinance may also be construed as granting no right to continued employment but merely conditioning an employee’s removal on compliance with certain specified procedures. We do not have any authoritative interpretation of this ordinance by a North Carolina state court. We do, however, have the opinion of the United States District Judge who, of course, sits in North Carolina and practiced law there for many years. Based on his understanding of state law, he concluded that petitioner “held his position at the will and pleasure of the city.” This construction of North Carolina law was upheld by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, albeit by an equally divided court. In comparable circumstances, this Court has accepted the interpretation of state law in which the District Court and the Court of Appeals have concurred even if an examination of the state-law issue without such guidance might have justified a different conclusion.

In this case, as the District Court construed the ordinance, the City Manager's determination of the adequacy of the grounds for discharge is not subject to judicial review; the employee is merely given certain procedural rights which the District Court found not to have been violated in this case. The District Court's reading of the ordinance is tenable; it derives some support from a decision of the North Carolina Supreme Court, Still v. Lance, supra; and it was accepted by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. These reasons are sufficient to foreclose our independent examination of the state-law issue.

Under that view of the law, petitioner’s discharge did not deprive him of a property interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

II

Petitioner’s claim that he has been deprived of liberty has two components. He contends that the reasons given for his discharge are so serious as to constitute a stigma that may severely damage his reputation in the community; in addition, he claims that those reasons were false.

In our appraisal of petitioner’s claim we must accept his version of the facts since the District Court granted summary judgment against him. His evidence established that he was a competent police officer; that he was respected by his peers; that he made more arrests than any other officer on the force; that although he had been criticized for engaging in high-speed pursuits, he had promptly heeded such criticism; and that he had a reasonable explanation for his imperfect attendance at police training sessions. We must therefore assume that his discharge was a mistake and based on incorrect information.

In Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564, we recognized that the nonretention of an untenured college teacher might make him somewhat less attractive to other employers, but nevertheless concluded that it would stretch the concept too far “to suggest that a person is deprived of 'liberty’ when he simply is not rehired in one job but remains as free as before to seek another.” Id., at 575. This same conclusion applies to the discharge of a public employee whose position is terminable at the will of the employer when there is no public disclosure of the reasons for the discharge.

In this case the asserted reasons for the City Manager’s decision were communicated orally to the petitioner in private and also were stated in writing in,answer to interrogatories after this litigation commenced. Since the former communication was not made public, it cannot properly form the basis for a claim that petitioner’s interest in his “good name, reputation, honor, or integrity” was thereby impaired. And since the latter communication was made in the course of a judicial proceeding which did not commence until after petitioner had suffered the injury for which he seeks redress, it surely cannot provide retroactive support for his claim. A contrary evaluation of either explanation would penalize forthright and truthful communication between employer and employee in the former instance, and between litigants in the latter.

Petitioner argues, however, that the reasons given for his discharge were false. Even so, the reasons stated to him in private had no different impact on his reputation than if they had been true. And the answers to his interrogatories, whether true or false, did not cause the discharge. The truth or falsity of the City Manager’s statement determines whether or not his decision to discharge the petitioner was correct or prudent, but neither enhances nor diminishes petitioner’s claim that his constitutionally protected interest in liberty has been impaired. A contrary evaluation of his contention would enable every discharged employee to assert a constitutional claim merely by alleging that his former supervisor made a mistake.

The federal court is not the appropriate forum in which to review the multitude of personnel decisions that are made daily by public agencies. We must accept the harsh fact that numerous individual mistakes are inevitable in the day-to-day administration of our affairs. The United States Constitution cannot feasibly be construed to require federal judicial review for every such error. In the absence of any claim that the public employer was motivated by a desire to curtail or to penalize the exercise of an employee’s constitutionally protected rights, we must presume that official action was regular and, if erroneous, can best be corrected in other ways. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is not a guarantee against incorrect or ill-advised personnel decisions.

The judgment is affirmed.

So ordered.

Mr. Justice Brennan,

with whom Mr. Justice Marshall concurs, dissenting.

Petitioner was discharged as a policeman on the grounds of insubordination, “causing low morale,” and “conduct unsuited to an officer.” Ante, at 343. It is difficult to imagine a greater “badge of infamy” that could be imposed on one following petitioner’s calling; in a profession in which prospective employees are invariably investigated, petitioner’s job prospects will be severely constricted by the governmental action in this case. Although our case law would appear to require that petitioner thus be accorded an opportunity “to clear his name” of this calumny, see, e. g., Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564, 573, and n. 12 (1972); Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U. S. 134, 157 (1974) (opinion of Rehnquist, J.), the Court condones this governmental action and holds that petitioner was deprived of no liberty interest thereby.

Paul v. Davis, 424 U. S. 693 (1976), a decision overtly hostile to the basic constitutional safeguards of the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments that I had hoped would be a “short-lived aberration,” id., at 735 (Brennan, J., dissenting), held that the “interest in reputation asserted in [Paul] is neither 'liberty’ nor 'property’ guaranteed against state deprivation without due process of law.” Id., at 712. Accordingly, it found inapplicable the rule that “[wjhere a person’s good name, reputation, honor, or integrity is at stake because of what the government is doing to him, notice and an opportunity to be heard are essential.” Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U. S. 433, 437 (1971), and cases cited therein. In so holding, the Court eviscerated the substance of a long line of prior cases, see, e. g., Anti-Fascist Comm. v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123 (1951); Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, 367 U. S. 886 (1961); Board of Regents v. Roth, supra, by confining their protection of “liberty” to situations in which the State inflicts damage to a government employee’s “good name, reputation, honor, or integrity” in the process of terminating his employment. See Paul v. Davis, supra, at 708. Compare id., at 709, 710, with id., at 732-733 (Brennan, J., dissenting). Today the Court effectively destroys even that last vestige of protection for “liberty” by holding that a State may tell an employee that he is being fired for some nonderogatory reason, and then turn around and inform prospective employers that the employee was in fact discharged for a stigmatizing reason that will effectively preclude future employment.

The Court purports to limit its holding to situations in which there is “no public disclosure of the reasons for the discharge,” ante, at 348, but in this case the stigmatizing reasons have been disclosed, and there is no reason to believe that respondents will not convey these actual reasons to petitioner's prospective employers. The Court responds by asserting that since the stigma was imposed “after petitioner had suffered the injury for which he seeks redress, it surely cannot provide retroactive support for his claim.” Ibid. But the “claim” does not arise until the State has officially branded petitioner in some way, and the purpose of the due process hearing is to accord him an opportunity to clear his name; merely because the derogatory information is filed in respondents’ records and no “publication” occurs until shortly after his discharge from employment does not subvert the fact that a postdepri-vation hearing to accord petitioner an opportunity to clear his name has been contemplated by our cases. Even under Paul v. Davis, respondents should be required to accord petitioner a due process hearing in which he can attempt to vindicate his name; this further expansion of those personal interests that the Court simply writes out of the “life, liberty, or property” Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments is simply another curtailment of precious constitutional safeguards that marks too many recent decisions of the Court.

I also fully concur in the dissenting opinions of Mr. Justice White and Mr. Justice Blackmun, which forcefully demonstrate the Court's error in holding that petitioner was not deprived of “property” without due process of law. I would only add that the strained reading of the local ordinance, which the Court deems to be “tenable,” ante, at 347, cannot be dispositive of the existence vel non of petitioner’s “property” interest. There is certainly a federal dimension to the definition of “property” in the Federal Constitution; cases such as Board of Regents v. Roth, supra, held merely that “property” interests encompass those to which a person has “a legitimate claim of entitlement,” 408 U. S., at 577, and can arise from “existing rules or understandings” that derive from “an independent source such as state law.” Ibid, (emphasis supplied). But certainly, at least before a state law is definitively construed as not securing a “property” interest, the relevant inquiry is whether it was objectively reasonable for the employee to believe he could rely on continued employment. Cf. ibid. (“It is a purpose of the ancient institution of property to protect those claims upon which people rely in their daily lives, reliance that must not be arbitrarily undermined.” ) At a minimum, this would require in this case an analysis of the common practices utilized and the expectations generated by respondents, and the manner in which the local ordinance would reasonably be read by respondents' employees. These disputed issues of fact are not meet for resolution, as they were on summary judgment, and would thus at a minimum require a remand for further factual development in the District Court.

These observations do not, of course, suggest that a “federal court is . . . the appropriate forum in which to review the multitude of personnel decisions that are made daily by public agencies.” Ante, at 349. However, the federal courts are the appropriate forum for ensuring that the constitutional mandates of due process are followed by those agencies of government making personnel decisions that pervasively influence the lives of those affected thereby; the fundamental premise of the Due Process Clause is that those procedural safeguards will help the government avoid the “harsh fact” of “incorrect or ill-advised personnel decisions.” Ante, at 350. Petitioner seeks no more than that, and I believe that his “property” interest in continued employment and his “liberty” interest in his good name and reputation dictate that he be accorded procedural safeguards before those interests are deprived by arbitrary or capricious government action.

Mr. Justice White,

with whom Mr. Justice Brennan, Mr. Justice Marshall, and Mr. Justice Black-mun join, dissenting.

I dissent because the decision of the majority rests upon a proposition which was squarely addressed and in my view correctly rejected by six Members of this Court in Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U. S. 134 (1974).

Petitioner Bishop was a permanent employee of the Police Department of the city of Marion, N. C. The city ordinance applicable to him provides:

“Dismissal. A permanent employee whose work is not satisfactory over a period of time shall be notified in what way his work is deficient and what he must do if his work is to be satisfactory. If a permanent employee fails to perform work up to the standard of the classification held, or continues to be negligent, inefficient, or unfit to perform his duties, he may be dismissed by the City Manager. Any discharged employee shall be given written notice of his discharge setting forth the effective date and reasons for his discharge if he shall request such a notice.” (Emphasis added.)

The second sentence of this ordinance plainly conditions petitioner’s dismissal on cause — i. e., failure to perform up to standard, negligence, inefficiency, or unfitness to perform the job. The District Court below did not otherwise construe this portion of the ordinance. In the only part of its opinion rejecting petitioner’s claim that the ordinance gave him a property interest in his job, the District Court said, in an opinion predating this Court's decision in Arnett v. Kennedy, supra:

“It is clear from Article II, Section 6, of the City's Personnel Ordinance, that the dismissal of an employee does not require a notice or a hearing. Upon request of the discharged employee, he shall be given written notice of his discharge setting forth the effective date and the reasons for the discharge. It thus appears that both the city ordinance and the state law have been complied with.” 377 F. Supp. 501, 504 (WDNC 1973).

Thus in concluding that petitioner had no “property interest” in his job entitling him to a hearing on discharge and that he held his position “at the will and pleasure of the city,” ibid., the District Court relied on the fact that the ordinance described its own procedures for determining cause, which procedures did not include a hearing. The majority purports, ante, at 345, and n. 8, to read the District Court’s opinion as construing the ordinance not to condition dismissal on cause, and, if this is what the majority means, its reading of the District Court’s opinion is clearly erroneous for the reasons just stated. However, later in its opinion the majority appears to eschew this construction of the District Court’s opinion and of the ordinance. In the concluding paragraph of its discussion of petitioner’s property interest, the majority holds that since neither the ordinance nor state law provides for a hearing, or any kind of review of the City Manager’s dismissal decision, petitioner had no enforceable property interest in his job. The majority concludes:

“In this case, as the District Court construed the ordinance, the City Manager’s determination of the adequacy of the grounds for discharge is not subject to judicial review; the employee is merely given certain procedural rights which the District Court found not to have been violated in this case. The District Court’s reading of the ordinance is tenable . . . .” Ante, at 347. (Emphasis added.)

The majority thus implicitly concedes that the ordinance supplies the “grounds” for discharge and that the City Manager must determine them to be “adequate” before he may fire an employee. The majority’s holding that petitioner had no property interest in his job in spite of the unequivocal language in the city ordinance that he may be dismissed only for certain kinds of cause rests, then, on the fact that state law provides no procedures for assuring that the City Manager dismiss him only for cause. The right to his job apparently given by the first two sentences of the ordinance is thus redefined, according to the majority, by the procedures provided for in the third sentence and as redefined is infringed only if the procedures are not followed.

This is precisely the reasoning which was embraced by only three and expressly rejected by six Members of this Court in Arnett v. Kennedy, supra. There a federal employee had “a statutory expectancy that he not be removed other than for 'such cause as will promote the efficiency of [the] service.’ ” 416 U. S., at 151-152 (opinion of Rehnquist, J., joined by Burger, C. J., and Stewart, J.). The three Justices whose views were rejected by a majority of the Court went on to say:

“But the very section of the statute which granted him that right . . . expressly provided also for the procedure by which ‘cause’ was to be determined, and expressly omitted the procedural guarantees which appellee insists are mandated by the Constitution. Only by bifurcating the very sentence of the Act of Congress which conferred upon appellee the right not to be removed save for cause could it be said that he had an expectancy of that substantive right without the procedural limitations which Congress attached to it. . . .” Id., at 152.

The three Justices went on:

“Here the property interest which appellee had in his employment was itself conditioned by the procedural limitations which had accompanied the grant of that interest. . . .” Id., at 155.

Accordingly they concluded that the Constitution imposed no independent procedural requirements.

This view was rejected by Mr. Justice Powell in an opinion joined by Mr. Justice Blackmun.

“The plurality opinion evidently reasons that the nature of appellee’s interest in continued federal employment is necessarily defined and limited by the statutory procedures for discharge and that the constitutional guarantee of procedural due process accords to appellee no procedural protections against arbitrary or erroneous discharge other than those expressly provided in the statute. The plurality would thus conclude that the statute governing federal employment determines not only the nature of appellee’s property interest, but also the extent of the procedural protections to which he may lay claim. It seems to me that this approach is incompatible with the principles laid down in Roth and Sindermann. Indeed, it would lead directly to the conclusion that whatever the nature of an individual’s statutorily created property interest, deprivation of that interest could be accomplished without notice or a hearing at any time. This view misconceives the origin of the right to procedural due process. That right is conferred, not by legislative grace, but by constitutional guarantee. While the legislature may elect not to confer a property interest in federal employment, it may not constitutionally authorize the deprivation of such an interest, once conferred, without appropriate procedural safeguards. . . .” Id., at 166-167. (Emphasis added.)

I, too, disagreed with the view stated in Mr. Justice Rehnquist’s opinion:

“I differ basically with the plurality’s view that 'where the grant of a substantive right is inextricably intertwined with the limitations on the procedures which are to be employed in determining that right, a litigant in the position of appellee must take the bitter with the sweet,’ and that 'the property interest which appellee had in his employment was itself conditioned by the procedural limitations which had accompanied the grant of that interest.’ Ante, at 153-154, 155. The rationale of this position quickly leads to the conclusion that even though the statute requires cause for discharge, the requisites of due process could equally have been satisfied had the law dispensed with any hearing at all, whether pretermination or post-termination.” Id., at 177-178.

The view was also rejected by Mr. Justice Marshall in an opinion joined by Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Douglas in which it was correctly observed:

“Accordingly, a majority of the Court rejects Mr. Justice Rehnquist’s argument that because ap-pellee’s entitlement arose from statute, it could be conditioned on a statutory limitation of procedural due process protections, an approach which would render such protection inapplicable to the deprivation of any statutory benefit — any 'privilege’ extended by Government — where a statute prescribed a termination procedure, no matter how arbitrary or unfair. It would amount to nothing less than a return, albeit in somewhat different verbal garb, to the thoroughly discredited distinction between rights and privileges which once seemed to govern the applicability of procedural due process.” Id., at 211.

The views now expressed by the majority are thus squarely contrary to the views expressed by a majority of the Justices in Arnett. As Mr. Justice Powell suggested in Arnett, they are also “incompatible with the principles laid down in Roth and Sindermann.” Id., at 166. I would not so soon depart from these cases nor from the views expressed by a majority in Arnett. The ordinance plainly grants petitioner a right to his job unless there is cause to fire him. Having granted him such a right it is the Federal Constitution, not state law, which determines the process to be applied in connection with any state decision to deprive him of it.

MR. Justice Blackmun,

with whom Mr. Justice Brennan joins, dissenting.

I join Mr. Justice White’s dissent for I agree that’ the Court appears to be adopting a legal principle which specifically was rejected by a majority of the Justices of this Court in Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U. S. 134 (1974).

I also feel, however, that Still v. Lance, 279 N. C. 254, 182 S. E. 2d 403 (1971), the only North Carolina case cited by the Court and by the District Court, is by no means the authoritative holding on state law that the Court, ante, at 345, and n. 9, seems to think it is. In Still the Supreme Court of North Carolina considered a statute that contained no “for cause” standard for failure to renew a teacher’s contract at the end of a school year. In holding that this provision did not create a continued expectation of employment, the North Carolina court noted that it “does not limit the right of the employer board to terminate the employment of a teacher at the end of a school year to a specified cause or circumstance.” 279 N. C., at 260, 182 S. E. 2d, at 407. This provision, the court observed, stood in sharp contrast with another provision of the statute relating to termination of employment during the school year and prescribing that when “it shall have been determined that the services of an employee are not acceptable for the remainder of the current school year” (emphasis added), ibid., notice and hearing were required.

The Marion ordinance in the present case contains a “for cause” standard for dismissal and, it seems to me, is like that portion of the statute construed in Still pertaining to termination of employment during the year. As such, it plainly does not subject an employee to termination at the will and pleasure of the municipality, but, instead, creates a proper expectation of continued employment so long as he performs his work satisfactorily. At this point, the Federal Constitution steps in and requires that appropriate procedures be followed before the employee may be deprived of his property interest.

       He relied on 42 U. S. C. § 1983, invoking federal jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (3). He sought reinstatement and back-pay. The defendants were the then City Manager, Chief of Police, and the city of Marion, Since the city is not a “person” within the meaning of the statute, it was not a proper defendant. Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167, 187-192.

       377 F. Supp. 501 (WD3STC 1973).

       A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed, with one judge dissenting, 498 F. 2d 1341 (CA4 1974); then, after granting a rehearing en banc, the court affirmed without opinion by an equally divided court.

       “[N]or shall any State deprive any person of fife, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . . .” U. S. Const., Arndt. 14.

       Article II, § 6, of the Personnel Ordinance of the city of Marion, reads as follows:

        “Dismissal. A permanent employee whose work is not satisfactory over a period of time shall be notified in what way his work is deficient and what he must do if his work is to be satisfactory. If a permanent employee fails to perform work up to the standard of the classification held, or continues to be negligent, inefficient, or unfit to perform his duties, he may be dismissed by the City Manager. Any discharged employee shall be given written notice of his discharge setting forth the effective date and reasons for his discharge if he shall request such a notice.”

       In Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U. S. 593, 601, the Court said that a “person's interest in a benefit is a 'property' interest for due process purposes if there are . . . rules or mutually explicit understandings that support his claim of entitlement to the benefit and that he may invoke at a hearing.”

       “Property interests, of course, are not created by the Constitution. Rather, they are created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law — rules or understandings that secure certain benefits and that support claims of entitlement to those benefits.” Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564, 577.

       This is not the construction which six Members of this Court placed on the federal regulations involved in Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U. S. 134. In that case the Court concluded that because the employee could only be discharged for cause, he had a property interest which was entitled to constitutional protection. In this case, a holding that as a matter of state law the employee “held his position at the will and pleasure of the city” necessarily establishes that he had no property interest. The Court’s evaluation of the federal regulations involved in Arnett sheds no light on the problem presented by this case.

       “Under the law in North Carolina, nothing else appearing, a contract of employment which contains no provision for the duration or termination of employment is terminable at the will of either party irrespective of the quality of performance by the other party. By statute, G. S. § 115-142 (b), a county board of education in North Carolina may terminate the employment of a teacher at the end of the school year without filing charges or giving its reasons for such termination, or granting the teacher an opportunity to be heard. Still v. Lance, 279 N. C. 254, 182 S. E. 2d 403 (1971).
      “It is clear from Article II, Section 6, of the City’s Personnel Ordinance, that the dismissal of an employee does not require a notice or a hearing. Upon request of the discharged employee, he shall be given written notice of his discharge setting forth the effective date and the reasons for the discharge. It thus appears that both the city ordinance and the state law have been complied with.
      “It further appears that the plaintiff held his position at the will and pleasure of the city.” 377 F. Supp., at 504.

       See United States v. Durham Lumber Co., 363 U. S. 522. In Propper v. Clark, 337 U. S. 472, 486-487, the Court stated: “The precise issue of state law involved, i. e., whether the temporary receiver under § 977-b of the New York Civil Practice Act is vested with title by virtue of his appointment, is one which has not been decided by the New York courts. Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals faced this question and answered it in the negative. In dealing with issues of state law that enter into judgments of federal courts, we are hesitant to overrule decisions by federal courts skilled in the law of particular states unless their conclusions are shown to be unreasonable.” In Township of Hillsborough v. Cromwell, 326 U. S. 620, 629-630, the Court stated: “Petitioner makes an extended argument to the effect that Duke Power Co. [v. State Board, 129 N. J. L. 449, 30 A. 2d 416, 131 N. J. L. 275, 36 A. 2d 201,] is not a controlling precedent on the local law question on which the decision below turned. On such questions we pay great deference to the views of the judges of those courts ‘who are familiar with the intricacies and trends of local law and practice.’ Huddleston v. Dwyer, 322 U. S. 232, 237. We are unable to say that the District Court and the Circuit Court of Appeals erred in applying to this case the rule of Duke Power Co. v. State Board, which involved closely analogous facts.” And in MacGregor v. State Mut. Life Assur. Co.,
        315 U. S. 280, 281, the Court stated: “No decision of the Supreme Court of Michigan, or of any other court of that State, construing the relevant Michigan law has been brought to our attention. In the absence of such guidance, we shall leave undisturbed the interpretation placed upon purely local law by a Michigan federal judge of long experience and by three circuit judges whose circuit includes Michigan.”

       In granting summary judgment for respondents, the District Court was required to resolve all genuine disputes as to material facts in favor of petitioner. Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 56 (c); Arnett v. Kennedy, supra, at 139-140.

       See Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U. S. 433, 437, and the discussion of the interest in reputation allied to employment in Paul v. Davis, 424 U. S. 693.

       Indeed, the impact on petitioner’s constitutionally protected interest in liberty is no greater even if we assume that the City Manager deliberately lied. Such fact might conceivably provide the basis for a state-law claim, the validity of which would be entirely unaffected by our analysis of the federal constitutional question.

       The cumulative impression created by the three dissenting opinions is that this holding represents a significant retreat from settled practice in the federal courts. The fact of the matter, however, is that the instances in which the federal judiciary has required a state agency to reinstate a discharged employee for failure to provide a pretermination hearing are extremely rare. The reason is clear. For unless we were to adopt Mr. Justice BreNNAN’s remarkably innovative suggestion that we develop a federal common law of property rights, or his equally far-reaching view that almost every discharge implicates a constitutionally protected liberty interest, the ultimate control of state personnel relationships is, and will remain, with the States; they may grant or withhold tenure at their unfettered discretion. In this case, whether we accept or reject the construction of the ordinance adopted by the two lower courts, the power to change or clarify that ordinance will remain in the hands of the City Council of the city of Marion.

       The Court in Paul also ignored the clear import of Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565 (1975); Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U. S. 433 (1971); and Jenkins v. McKeithen, 395 U. S. 411 (1969). See Paul v. Davis, 424 U. S., at 729-733 (Brennan, J., dissenting).

       It is only common sense, to be sure, that prospective employers will inquire as to petitioner’s employment during the 33 months in which he was in respondents’ service.

       The Court asserts that to provide petitioner with a post-deprivation hearing when the stigmatizing reasons become known during litigation “would penalize forthright and truthful communication . . . between litigants.” Ante, at 349. Of course, there are various sanctions under our judicial system to ensure that testimony is “forthright and truthful” without necessitating denial of petitioner’s due process rights. And I suppose the Court would declare that according a discharged employee a postdeprivation hearing as soon as it is clear his former employer is stigmatizing his name when it communicates with prospective employers would similarly discourage “forthright and truthful” communication between employers in that situation. However, the purpose of the due process hearing is to provide petitioner a mechanism for clearing his name of a cloud that is not in fact “truthful.”

       By holding that States have “unfettered discretion” in defining “property” for purposes of the Due Process Clause of the Federal Constitution, see ante, at 349-350, n. 14, the Court is, as my Brother White argues, effectively adopting the analysis rejected by a majority of the Court in Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U. S. 134 (1974). More basically, the Court’s approach is a resurrection of the discredited rights/privileges distinction, for a State may now avoid all due process safeguards attendant upon the loss of even the necessities of life, cf. Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S. 254 (1970), merely by labeling them as not constituting “property.” See also, e. g., Bell v. Burson, 402 U. S. 535 (1971); Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67 (1972); Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471 (1972).

       For example, petitioner was hired for a “probationary” period of six months, after which he became a “permanent” employee. No reason appears on the record for this distinction, other than the logical assumption, confirmed by a reasonable reading of the local ordinance, that after completion of the former period, an employee may only be discharged for “cause.” As to respondents’ personnel practices, it is important to note that in a department which currently employs 17 persons, petitioner’s was the only discharge, for cause or otherwise, during the period of over three years from the time of his hiring until the time of pretrial discovery.

       The Court accepts the District Court’s conclusion that the city employee holds his position at the will and pleasure of the city. If the Court believes that the District Court’s conclusion did not rest on the procedural limitations in the ordinance, then the Court must construe the District Court’s opinion — and the ordinance — as permitting, but not limiting, discharges to those based on the causes specified in the ordinance. In this view, discharges for other reasons or for no reason at all could be made. Termination of employment would in effect be within the complete discretion of the city; and for this reason the employee would have no property interest in his employment which would call for the protections of the Due Process Clause. As indicated in the text, I think this construction of the ordinance and of the District Court’s opinion is in error.

         Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564 (1972), and Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U. S. 593 (1972).

       The majority intimates, ante, at 345 n. 8, that the views of the three plurality Justices in Arnett v. Kennedy were rejected because the other six Justices disagreed on the question of how the federal statute involved in that case should be construed. This is incorrect. All Justices agreed on the meaning of the statute. As the remarks of the six Justices quoted above indicate, it was the constitutional significance of the statute on which the six disagreed with the plurality.
      Similarly, here, I do not disagree with the majority or the courts below on the meaning of the state law. If I did, I might be inclined to defer to the judgments of the two lower courts. The state law says that petitioner may be dismissed by the City Manager only for certain kinds of cause and then provides that he will receive notice and an explanation, but no hearing and no review. I agree that as a matter of state law petitioner has no remedy no matter how arbitrarily or erroneously the City Manager has acted. This is what the lower courts say the statute means. I differ with those courts and the majority only with respect to the constitutional significance of an unambiguous state law. A majority of the Justices in Arnett v. Kennedy, stood on the proposition that the Constitution requires procedures not required by state law when the state conditions dismissal on “cause.”


source: Caselaw Access Project

author: Mr. Justice Brennan Mr. Justice White,

license: Public Domain

text:
    NEW HAMPSHIRE v. MAINE
    No. 64,
    Orig.
    Argued April 19, 1976
    Decided June 14, 1976

      Brennan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Burgee, C. J., and Stewart, Marshall, Powell, and Rehnquist, JJ., joined. White, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Blackmun and Stevens, JJ., joined, post, p. 370.

      Richard F. Upton argued the cause for plaintiff on exceptions to the Report of the Special Master. With him on the briefs were Warren B. Rudman, Attorney General of New Hampshire, and David H. Souter, Deputy Attorney General.

      Edward F. Bradley, Jr., Assistant Attorney General of Maine, argued the cause for defendant on exceptions to the Report. With him on the briefs were Joseph E. Brennan, Attorney General, and Donald G. Alexander and Robert J. Stolt, Assistant Attorneys General.

        Stephen B. Katz filed a brief for the New Hampshire Commercial Fishermen’s Assn, as amicus curiae.

   Mr. Justice Brennan

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Both New Hampshire and Maine have filed exceptions to the Report of the Special Master in this original action brought by New Hampshire against Maine, 414 U. S. 810, 996 (1973), to locate the lateral marine boundary separating the States between the mouth of Portsmouth Harbor and the entrance to Gosport Harbor in the Isles of Shoals. Prior to trial the Attorneys General of New Hampshire and Maine agreed upon a settlement and jointly filed a “Motion for Entry of Judgment by Consent of Plaintiff and Defendant,” together with a proposed consent decree, based on a stipulated record. The Special Master thereafter, without further hearing but with supplemental briefs, declared the entire case, including the proposed consent decree, to be under submission.

The Special Master “concluded that the proposed consent decree should be submitted to the Court for its consideration,” Report of Special Master 3, but expressed the view that rejection of the decree must be recommended as not permissible under the principle of Vermont v. New York, 417 U. S. 270, 277 (1974), that “mere settlements by the parties acting under compulsions and motives that have no relation to performance of [the Court’s] Art. Ill functions” do not relieve the Court of its constitutional duty to decide the merits of the controversy between the States. However, the Special Master recommended entry of the consent decree if its entry would be consistent with performance of the Court’s Art. Ill function. We hold that entry of the consent decree is consistent with that function. We therefore sustain Maine’s exception to the rejection of the proposed consent decree. Accordingly, we have no occasion to address the other exceptions filed by the States.

The boundary in dispute was in fact fixed in 1740 by decree of King George II of England. That decree set the boundary as follows:

“That the Dividing Line shall pass up thro the Mouth of Piscataqua Harbour and up the Middle of the River .... And that the Dividing Line shall part the Isles of Shoals and- run thro the Middle of the Harbour between the Islands to the Sea on the Southerly Side... .”

The historical events that produced this 1740 decree, summarized briefly here, are detailed in the Special Master’s Report. In the early 18th century, a major boundary dispute arose between the provinces of New Hampshire and Massachusetts regarding the southern border of New Hampshire. The legal issues focused on the Merrimack River, but the boundary between New Hampshire and the Maine portion of Massachusetts was also involved. When representatives of the two provinces were unable in 1731 to reach agreement, the New Hampshire representatives presented the matter to King George II. The King referred the dispute to the Board of Trade, which in 1735 recommended that commissioners from the other New England Colonies be designated to resolve the question. In 1737 the King accordingly appointed 20 members of the Provincial Councils of New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Nova Scotia to serve as commissioners. Although much of the debate related only to the Merrimack question, the Piscataqua boundary between Maine and New Hampshire was also a point of controversy. The commission rendered its decision later that year, but both provinces appealed the decision to the King. In 1738 the King referred the matter to the Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council for Hearing Appeals from the Plantations, which recommended acceptance of the commission’s resolution without change. In 1740 King George II signed a decree accepting this recommendation and, employing the quoted language, thereby permanently fixed the Maine-New Hampshire boundary. This boundary was the fixed boundary when the Union, including Massachusetts and New Hampshire, was formed, and when Maine was formally separated from Massachusetts and admitted to the Union.

The States expressly agree with the conclusion of the Special Master that “the decree of 1740 fixed the boundary in the Piscataqua Harbor area.” Their quarrel was over the location by the decree of the “Mouth of Pis-cataqua River,” “Middle of the River,” and “Middle of the Harbour” within the contemplation of the decree. The proposed consent decree embodies the States’ agreement upon the meaning of those terms, and we hold that the Court may give effect to the States’ agreement consistently with performance of our Art. Ill function and duty.

The Special Master found that a “case or controversy” existed when this original action was filed, but that the effect of the compromise represented by the joint motion for entry of the consent decree was that “[a]t this point in time . . . the moving papers do not propose a case or controversy in which the Court might apply 'principles of law or equity to the facts, distilled by hearings or stipulations.’ [Vermont v. New York, supra, at 277.]” Report of Special Master 3-4. This was true of the circumstances before the Court in Vermont v. New York, but it is not true of the circumstances before the Court in this ease.

The proposed consent decree in Vermont provided that “no findings shall be made” and that “it shall not constitute an adjudication on any issue of fact or law, or evidence, or any admission by any party with respect to any such issue.” 417 U. S., at 271. The decree also provided for appointment by the Court of a Special Master authorized to consider all future disputes, after exhaustion of administrative and other remedies, and to file recommendations with the Court; these recommendations were to become decisions of the Court unless disapproved. Obviously this proposal “would materially change the function of the Court in these interstate contests.” Id., at 277. If we were to agree to police prospectively the conduct of the parties, “we would be acting more in an arbitral rather than a judicial manner.” Ibid.

In contrast, the 1740 decree, not the proposed consent decree, permanently fixed the boundary between the States; the proposed consent decree does nothing except record the States’ agreement upon the location of the “Mouth of Piscataqua River,” “Middle of the River,” and “Middle of the Harbour” within the contemplation of the 1740 decree. The consent decree expressly states that it “determines the lateral marine boundary fine between New Hampshire and Maine from the inner Portsmouth Harbor to the breakwater at the end of the inner Gosport Harbor in the Isles of Shoals.”

The consent decree therefore proposes a wholly permissible final resolution of the controversy both as to facts and law. Nothing remotely resembling “arbitral” rather than “judicial” functions is involved, unlike the proposed consent decree in Vermont v. New York. Moreover, there is nothing to suggest that the location of the 1740 boundary agreed upon by the States is wholly contrary to relevant evidence, and we therefore see no reason not to give it effect, even if we would reach a different conclusion upon the same evidence. The'nature of the dispute is such that the States’ resolution of it does not fall into the category of agreements that we reject because acceptance would not be consistent with our Art. Ill function and duty. Vermont v. New York does not proscribe the acceptance of settlements between the States that merely have the effect, as here, of reasonably investing imprecise terms with definitions that give effect to a decree that permanently fixed the boundary between the States.

New Hampshire suggests, however, that acceptance of the consent decree without an independent determination by the Court as to the validity of the legal principles on which it is based would be a circumvention of the Compact Clause, Art. I, § 10, cl. 3. The premise of this argument is that the proposed settlement is an “Agreement or Compact” within the meaning of the Clause and thus requires the consent of Congress to be effective. We disagree.

The application of the Compact Clause is limited to agreements that are “directed to the formation of any combination tending to the increase of political power in the States, which may encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States.” Virginia v. Tennessee, 148 U. S. 503, 519 (1893). Whether a particular agreement respecting boundaries is within the Clause will depend on whether “the establishment of the boundary line may lead or not to the increase of the political power or influence of the States affected, and thus encroach or not upon the full and free exercise of Federal authority.” Id., at 520. See Wharton v. Wise, 153 U. S. 155, 168-171 (1894).

The proposed consent decree plainly falls without the Compact Clause under this test. New Hampshire and Maine are not here adjusting the boundary between them; the boundary was fixed over two centuries ago by the 1740 decree, and the consent decree is directed simply to locating precisely this already existing boundary. Accordingly, neither State can be viewed as enhancing its power in any sense that threatens the supremacy of the Federal Government. The boundary defined by the proposed decree “takes effect, not as an alienation of territory, but as a definition of the true and ancient boundary.” Virginia v. Tennessee, supra, at 522. See North Carolina v. Tennessee, 235 U. S. 1, 15-16 (1914).

The proposed consent decree will be entered.

So ordered.

Mr. Justice White,

with whom Mr. Justice Black-mun and Mr. Justice Stevens join, dissenting.

I find unacceptable the Court’s cursory conclusion that the Special Master and we ourselves are bound to accept the agreement of the parties as to the meaning of the words “middle of the river” and related phrases which were used in the 1740 document to describe the Maine-New Hampshire boundaries, as well as their agreement as to where that line lies on the face of the earth.

The parties interpret “middle of the river” as meaning the thalweg, which they understand to be the middle of the main channel of navigation. The States then fashioned their mutually agreed boundary in the river and the harbor on this basis, their boundary in the ocean being a straight line between the points at which the main navigation channels cross the closing lines of Portsmouth and Gosport Harbors. No inquiry is made, however, by either the Court or the parties as to whether the “middle of the river” has, or had, any commonly understood meaning in the law. The Special Master concluded that these words, when used in 1740, intended to describe the geographic middle of the river — a line all points of which were equidistant from the nearest points on the shores. This was the meaning given to very similar words in Texas v. Louisiana, 410 U. S. 702 (1973); and it seems incredible to me that however correct the Special Master may be in this regard — and the Court does not even imply that he is wrong — he must nevertheless accept the parties’ agreement that the middle of the river is the middle of the main channel of navigation.

The Court’s holding seems to be that whatever the parties might agree to with respect to the import of the 1740 language, the Special Master and the courts must give their imprimatur. As I understand the Court, the stipulation would have been just as acceptable and just as binding upon us if the parties had agreed that the middle of the river was intended to mean the geographical center of the stream.

I agree with the contrary view of the Special Master that the middle-of-the-river language should be determined in accordance with legal principles, not by agreements of convenience. The Special Master concluded that when the language involved was employed in 1740 the geographic middle rather than the thalweg or main channel of the river was intended. The Court does not hold the Special Master to be wrong in this regard, and it would be difficult to believe that the “middle of the river” should be determined by what the main channel of navigation might turn out to be in the 1970’s.

The parties agree that the geographic middle and the main channel of navigation áre totally different concepts. The map filed by the State of Maine in connection with its exceptions indicates the great difference it makes whether the stipulated boundary or the geographic middle is to rule this case. The State strongly objects to the latter because substantial areas both in the river and harbor and seaward would be lost to its neighbor, New Hampshire.

Furthermore, whether the middle of the river is to mean the thalweg or a line equidistant from the shores, the boundary should be laid out in accordance with the legal import of these concepts. This does not seem to be the case with respect to the stipulated boundary in the Piscataqua River and Portsmouth Harbor; for the agreed boundary proceeds on absolutely straight lines, and it is incredible that a line following the main or deepest channel would proceed on such an invariable course. What the parties have actually done is to agree upon a line which they assert represents the course most usually followed by those navigating the harbor and the river. This is not at all the same thing as a boundary following the thalweg.

I would not think that without the consent of Congress two States could agree to locate the boundary between them on either shore of the river separating them if the controlling document describes their boundary as the middle of the river; nor, if the document made it plain that the main chaimel in the river was their boundary line, would they be free to stipulate that the boundary should be the geographic center of the stream nor should a court approve any such stipulation. Rather it should determine and lay out the line in accordance with accepted legal principles and enter a decree accordingly. This is what the Special Master recommended that we do, and his Report should be accepted and a decree entered in accordance therewith.

       The controversy arose out of a dispute over lobster fishing in the seabed. Maine’s regulatory laws, if applicable, are more restrictive than those of New Hampshire. For example, Maine requires a license, available only to Maine residents, for the taking of lobsters in Maine waters. Me. Rev. Stat. Ann. tit. 12, § 4404 (Supp. 1975-1976). Maine also imposes stricter minimum- and maximum-size requirements. Compare Me. Rev. Stat. Ann. tit. 12, §4451 (1964), with N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann. §211:27 (Supp. 1975). Before the original action was filed, efforts to settle the dispute failed, and violence over lobster fishing rights in the area was threatened.

       A motion to intervene on behalf of the New Hampshire Commercial Fishermen's Association was denied by the Special Master, but leave to proceed as amicus curiae was granted.

       As noted by the Special Master, a resolution of the New Hampshire Legislature supported a different marine boundary. The joint motion in support of the consent decree states as follows:
      “Counsel assure the Court that the requested disposition of this action has been fully explained to the Governor and Executive Council of each State by its Counsel and that the Governor and Executive Council of each State approve the requested disposition of this action.”
      No contention has been made that under New Hampshire law legislative approval or disapproval renders the New Hampshire consent ineffective.


author: Mr. Justice Brennan

text:
    BRYAN v. ITASCA COUNTY, MINNESOTA
    No. 75-5027.
    Argued April 20, 1976
    Decided June 14, 1976

      BreNNAN, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

      Bernard P. Becker argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief were Gerald L. Beck, Michael Hagedorn, and Daniel H. Israel.

      C. H. Luther, Deputy Attorney General of Minnesota, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Warren Spannaus, Attorney General, and Paul R. Kempainen and Steven G. Thorne, Special Assistant Attorneys General.

        Solicitor General Bork, Assistant Attorney General Taft, Harry B. Sachse, Edmund B. Clark, and Jacques B. Gelin filed a brief for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal.

   Mr. Justice Brennan

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case presents the question reserved in McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm’n, 411 U. S. 164, 178 n. 18 (1973): whether the grant of civil jurisdiction to the States conferred by § 4 of Pub. L. 280, 67 Stat. 589, 28 U. S. C. § 1360, is a congressional grant of power to the States to tax reservation Indians except insofar as taxation is expressly excluded by the terms of the statute.

Petitioner Russell Bryan, an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, resides in a mobile home on land held in trust by the United States for the Chippewa Tribe on the Leech Lake Reservation in Minnesota. In June 1972, petitioner received notices from the auditor of respondent Itasca County, Minn., that he had been assessed personal property tax liability on the mobile home totaling $147.95. Thereafter, in September 1972, petitioner brought this suit in the Minnesota District Court seeking a declaratory judgment that the State and county were without authority to levy such a tax on personal property of a reservation Indian on the reservation and that imposition of such a tax was contrary to federal law. The Minnesota District Court rejected the contention and entered judgment for respondent county. The Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed, 303 Minn. 395, 228 N. W. 2d 249 (1975). We granted certiorari, 423 U. S. 923 (1975), and now reverse.

I

Principles defining the power of States to tax reservation Indians and their property and activities on federally established reservations were clarified in McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm’n, supra. As summarized in its companion case, Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U. S. 145 (1973), McClanahan concluded:

“[I]n the special area of state taxation, absent cession of jurisdiction or other federal statutes permitting it, there has been no satisfactory authority for taxing Indian reservation lands or Indian income from activities carried on within the boundaries of the reservation, and McClanahan ... lays to rest any doubt in this respect by holding that such taxation is not permissible absent Congressional consent.” Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, supra, at 148.

McClanahan held that Arizona was disabled in the absence of congressional consent from imposing a state income tax on the income of a reservation Indian earned solely on the reservation. On the authority of McClanahan, Moe v. Salish & Kootenai Tribes, 425 U. S. 463 (1976), held this Term that in the absence of congressional consent the State was disabled from imposing a personal property tax on motor vehicles owned by tribal members living on the reservation, or a vendor license fee applied to a reservation Indian conducting a business for the tribe on reservation land, or a sales tax as applied to on-reservation sales by Indians to Indians.

Thus McClanahan and Moe preclude any authority in respondent county to levy a personal property tax upon petitioner’s mobile home in the absence of congressional consent. Our task therefore is to determine whether § 4 of Pub. L. 280, 28 U. S. C. § 1360, constitutes such consent.

Section 4 (a), 28 U. S. C. § 1360 (a), provides:

“Each of the States . . . listed in the following table shall have jurisdiction over civil causes of action between Indians or to which Indians are parties which arise in the areas of Indian country listed ... to the same extent that such State . . . has jurisdiction over other civil causes of action, and those civil laws of such State . . . that are of general application to private persons or private property shall have the same force and effect within such Indian country as they have elsewhere within the State . . . :
“Minnesota ... All Indian country within the State, except the Red Lake Reservation.”

The statute does not in terms provide that the tax laws of a State are among “civil laws ... of general application to private persons or private property.” The Minnesota Supreme Court concluded, however, that they were, finding in § 4 (b) of the statute a negative implication of inclusion in § 4 (a) of a general power of tax. Section 4 (b), 28 U. S. C. § 1360 (b), provides:

“Nothing in this section shall authorize the alienation, encumbrance, or taxation of any real or personal property, including water rights, belonging to any Indian or any Indian tribe, band, or community that is held in trust by the United States or is subject to a restriction against alienation imposed by the United States; or shall authorize regulation of the use of such property in a manner inconsistent with any Federal treaty, agreement, or statute or with any regulation made pursuant thereto; or shall confer jurisdiction upon the State to adjudicate, in probate proceedings or otherwise, the ownership, or right to possession of such property or any interest therein.”

The Minnesota Supreme Court reasoned that “unless paragraph (a) is interpreted as a general grant of the power to tax, then the exceptions contained in paragraph (b) are limitations on a nonexistent power.” 303 Minn., at 402, 228 N. W. 2d, at 253. Therefore, the state court held: “Public Law 280 is a clear grant of the power to tax.” Id., at 406, 228 N. W. 2d, at 256. We disagree. That conclusion is foreclosed by the legislative history of Pub. L. 280 and the application of canons of construction applicable to congressional statutes claimed to terminate Indian immunities.

II

The primary concern of Congress in enacting Pub. L. 280 that emerges from its sparse legislative history was with the problem of lawlessness on certain Indian reservations, and the absence of adequate tribal institutions for law enforcement. See Goldberg, Public Law 280: The Limits of State Jurisdiction over Reservation Indians, 22 U. C. L. A. L. Rev. 535, 541-542 (1975). The House Report states:

“These States lack jurisdiction to prosecute Indians for most offenses committed on Indian reservations or other Indian country, with limited exceptions. The applicability of Federal criminal laws in States having Indian reservations is also limited. The United States district courts have a measure of jurisdiction over offenses committed on Indian reservations or other Indian country by or against Indians, but in cases of offenses committed by Indians against Indians that jurisdiction is limited to the so-called 10 major crimes: murder, manslaughter, rape, incest, assault with intent to kill, assault with a dangerous weapon, arson, burglary, robbery, and larceny.
“As a practical matter, the enforcement of law and order among the Indians in the Indian country has been left largely to the Indian groups themselves. In many States, tribes are not adequately organized to perform that function; consequently, there has been created a hiatus in law-enforcement authority that could best be remedied by conferring criminal jurisdiction on States indicating an ability and willingness to accept such responsibility.” H. R. Rep. No. 848, 83d Cong., 1st Sess., 5-6 (1953).

Thus, provision for state criminal jurisdiction over offenses committed by or against Indians on the reservations was the central focus of Pub. L. 280 and is embodied in § 2 of the Act, 18 U. S. C. § 1162.

In marked contrast in the legislative history is the virtual absence of expression of congressional policy or intent respecting § 4’s grant of civil jurisdiction to the States. Of special significance for our purposes, however, is the total absence of mention or discussion regarding a congressional intent to confer upon the States an authority to tax Indians or Indian property on reservations. Neither the Committee Reports nor the floor discussion in either House mentions such authority. This omission has significance in the application of the canons of construction applicable to statutes affecting Indian immunities, as some mention would normally be expected if such a sweeping change in the status of tribal government and reservation Indians had been contemplated by Congress. The only mention of taxation authority is in a colloquy between Mr. Sellery, Chief Counsel of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Congressman Young during House committee hearings on Pub. L. 280. That colloquy strongly suggests that Congress did not mean to grant tax authority to the States:

“Mr. Young. Does your bill limit the provision for Federal assistance to States in defraying .the increased expenses of the courts in connection with the widening of the jurisdiction that the bill encompasses?
“Mr. Sellery. No; it does not.
“Mr. Young. Do you think it would be necessary to provide for some payment, inasmuch as the great portion of Indian lands are not subject to taxation?
“Mr. Sellery. . . . Generally, the Department’s views are that if we started on the processes of Federal financial assistance or subsidization of law enforcement activities among the Indians, it might turn out to be a rather costly program, and it is a problem which the States should deal with and accept without Federal financial assistance; otherwise there will be some tendency, the Department believes, for the Indian to be thought of and perhaps to think of himself because of the financial assistance which comes from the Federal Government as still somewhat a member of a race or group which is set apart from other citizens of the State. And it is desired to give him and the other citizens of the State the feeling of a conviction that he is in the same status and has access to the same services, including the courts, as other citizens of the State who are not Indians.
“Mr. Young. That would not quite be true, though; would it? Because for the most part he does not pay any taxes.
“Mr. Sellery. No. There is that difference.
“Mr. Young. A rather sizable difference in not paying for the courts or paying for the increased expenses for judicial proceedings.
“Mr. Sellery. The Indians, of course, do pay other forms of taxes. I do not know how the courts of Nevada are supported financially, but the Indians do pay the sales tax and other taxes.
“Mr. Young. But no income tax or corporation tax or profits tax. You understand a large portion of the land is held in trust and therefore is not subject to tax.
“Mr. Sellery. That is correct.
“Mr. Young. So far as my State is concerned, it would be a large burden on existing costs of judicial procedure. I think it is only right that the Federal Government should make some contribution for that. You seem to differentiate. I think there is a differentiation, too, in that they are not paying taxes.
“Mr. Sellery. I will concede your point that they are not paying taxes. The Department has recommended, nevertheless, that no financial assistance be afforded to the States.” App. 55-56.

Piecing together as best we can the sparse legislative history of § 4, subsection (a) seems to have been primarily intended to redress the lack of adequate Indian forums for resolving private legal disputes between reservation Indians, and between Indians and other private citizens, by permitting the courts of the States to decide such disputes; this is definitely the import of the statutory wording conferring upon a State “jurisdiction over civil causes of action between Indians or to which Indians are parties which arise in . . . Indian country ... to the same extent that such State . . . has jurisdiction over other civil causes of action.” With this as the primary focus of §4 (a), the wording that follows in § 4 (a)— “and those civil laws of such State . .. that are of general application to private persons or private property shall have the same force and effect within such Indian country as they have elsewhere within the State” — authorizes application by the state courts of their rules of decision to decide such disputes. Cf. 28 U. S. C. § 1652. This construction finds support in the consistent and uncon-tradicted references in the legislative history to “permitting” “State courts to adjudicate civil controversies” arising on Indian reservations, H. R. Rep. No. 848, pp. 5, 6 (emphasis added), and the absence of anything remotely resembling an intention to confer general state civil regulatory control over Indian reservations. In short, the consistent and exclusive use of the terms “civil causes of action,” “aris[ing] on,” “civil laws ... of general application to private persons or private property,” and “adjudication],” in both the Act and its legislative history virtually compels our conclusion that the primary intent of § 4 was to grant jurisdiction over private civil litigation involving reservation Indians in state court.

Furthermore, certain tribal reservations were completely exempted from the provisions of Pub. L. 280 precisely because each had a “tribal law-and-order organization that functions in a reasonably satisfactory manner.” H. R. Rep. No. 848, p. 7. Congress plainly meant only to allow state courts to decide criminal and civil matters arising on reservations not so organized. Accordingly, rather than the expansive reading given § 4 (a) by the Minnesota Supreme Court, we feel that the construction we give the section is much more consonant with the revealed congressional intent. Moreover, our construction is consistent with our prior references to § 4 as “the extension of state jurisdiction over civil causes of action by or against Indians arising in Indian country.” Kennerly v. District Court of Montana, 400 U. S. 423, 427 (1971). See also id., at 424 n. 1; id., at 430-431 (Stewart, J., dissenting); Warren Trading Post v. Arizona Tax Comm’n, 380 U. S. 685, 687 n. 3 (1965); Menominee Tribe v. United States, 391 U. S. 404, 416 n. 8 (1968) (Stewart, J.; dissenting).

Our construction is also more consistent with Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, 82 Stat. 78, 25 U. S. C. §§ 1321-1326. Title IV repeals § 7 of Pub. L. 280 and requires tribal consent as a condition to further state assumptions of the jurisdiction provided in 18 U. S. C. § 1162 and 28 U. S. C. § 1360. Section 402 of Title IV, 25 U. S. C. § 1322, tracks the language of § 4 of Pub. L. 280. Section 406 of Title IV, 25 U. S. C. § 1326, which provides for Indian consent, refers to “State jurisdiction acquired pursuant to this subchapter with respect to criminal offenses or civil causes of action . . . .” It is true, of course, that the primary interpretation of § 4 must have reference to the legislative history of the Congress that enacted it rather than to the history of Acts of a later Congress. Nevertheless, Title IV of the 1968 Act is intimately related to § 4, as it provides the method for further state assumptions of the jurisdiction conferred by § 4, and we previously have construed the effect of legislation affecting reservation Indians in light of “intervening” legislative enactments. Moe v. Salish & Kootenai Tribes, 425 U. S., at 472-475. It would be difficult to suppose that Congress in 1968 intended the meaning of § 4 to vary depending upon the time and method by which particular States acquired jurisdiction. And certainly the legislative history of Title IV makes it difficult to construe § 4 jurisdiction acquired pursuant to Title IV as extending general state civil regulatory authority, including taxing power, to govern Indian reservations. Senator Ervin, who offered and principally sponsored Title IV, see Kennerly v. District Court of Montana, supra, at 429 n. 5, referred to § 1360 civil jurisdiction as follows:

“Certain representatives of municipalities have charged that the repeal of [§ 7 of] Public Law 280 would hamper air and water pollution controls and provide a haven for undesirable, unrestricted business establishments within tribal land borders. Not only does this assertion show the lack of faith that certain cities have in the ability and desire of Indian tribes to better themselves and their environment, but, most importantly, it is irrelevant, since Public Law 880 relates primarily to the application of state civil and criminal law in court proceedings, and has no bearing on programs set up by the States to assist economic and environmental development in Indian territory.” (Emphasis added.) Hearing before the Subcommittee on Indian Affairs of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, No. 90-23, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 136 (1968).

Ill

Other considerations also support our construction. Today’s congressional policy toward reservation Indians may less clearly than in 1963 favor their assimilation, but Pub. L. 280 was plainly not meant to effect total assimilation. Public L. 280 was only one of many types of assimilationist legislation under active consideration in 1953. H. R. Rep. No. 848, pp. 3-5; Santa Rosa Band of Indians v. Kings County, 532 F. 2d 655, 662 (CA9 1975). And nothing in its legislative history remotely suggests that Congress meant the Act’s extension of civil jurisdiction to the States should result in the undermining or destruction of such tribal governments as did exist and a conversion of the affected tribes into little more than “ 'private, voluntary organizations,’ ” United States v. Mazurie, 419 U. S. 544, 557 (1975) — a possible result if tribal governments and reservation Indians were subordinated to the full panoply of civil regulatory powers, including taxation, of state and local governments. The Act itself refutes such an inference: there is notably absent any conferral of state jurisdiction over the tribes themselves, and § 4 (c), 28 U. S. C. § 1360 (c), providing for the “full force and effect” of any tribal ordinances or customs “heretofore or hereafter adopted by an Indian tribe ... if not inconsistent with any applicable civil law of the State,” contemplates the continuing vitality of tribal government.

Moreover, the same Congress that enacted Pub. L. 280 also enacted several termination Acts — legislation which is cogent proof that Congress knew well how to express its intent directly when that intent was to subject reservation Indians to the full sweep of state laws and state taxation. Cf. Board of Comm’rs v. Seber, 318 U. S. 705, 713 (1943); Goudy v. Meath, 203 U. S. 146, 149 (1906). These termination enactments provide expressly for subjecting distributed property “and any income derived therefrom by the individual, corporation, or other legal entity ... to the same taxes, State and Federal, as in the case of non-Indians,” 25 U. S. C. §§ 564j, 749, 898, and provide that “all statutes of the United States which affect Indians because of their status as Indians shall no longer be applicable to the members of the tribe, and the laws of the several States shall apply to the tribe and its members in the same manner as they apply to other citizens or persons within their jurisdiction.” 25 U. S. C. §§ 564q, 757, 899; cf. 25 U. S. C. § 726, These contemporaneous termination Acts are in pari materia with Pub. L. 280. Menominee Tribe v. United States, 391 U. S., at 411. Reading this express language respecting state taxation and application of the full range of state laws to tribal members of these contemporaneous termination Acts, the negative inference is that Congress did not mean in § 4 (a) to subject reservation Indians to state taxation. Thus, rather than inferring a negative implication of a grant of general taxing power in § 4 (a) from the exclusion of certain taxation in § 4 (b), we conclude that construing Pub. L. 280 in pari materia with these Acts shows that if Congress in enacting Pub. L. 280 had intended to confer upon the States general civil regulatory powers, including taxation, over reservation Indians, it would have expressly said so.

IV

Additionally, we note that §4(b), excluding “taxation of any real or personal property . . . belonging to any Indian or any Indian tribe . . . that is held in trust by the United States or is subject to a restriction against alienation imposed by the United States,” is not obviously the narrow exclusion of state taxation that the Minnesota Supreme Court read it to be. On its face the statute is not clear whether the exclusion is applicable only to taxes levied directly on the trust property specifically, or whether it also excludes taxation on activities taking place in conjunction with such property and income deriving from its use. And even if read narrowly to apply only to taxation levied against trust property directly, § 4 (b) certainly does not expressly authorize all other state taxation of reservation Indians.

Moreover, the express prohibition of any “alienation, encumbrance, or taxation” of any trust property can be read as prohibiting state courts, acquiring jurisdiction over civil controversies involving reservation Indians pursuant to § 4, from applying state laws or enforcing judgments in ways that would effectively result in the “alienation, encumbrance, or taxation” of trust property. Indeed, any other reading of this provision of § 4 (b) is difficult to square with the identical prohibition contained in § 2 (b) of the Act, which applies the same restrictions upon States exercising criminal jurisdiction over reservation Indians. It would simply make no sense to infer from the identical language of § 2 (b) a general power in § 2 (a) to tax Indians in all other respects since § 2 (a) deals only with criminal jurisdiction.

Indeed, § 4 (b) in its entirety may be read as simply a reaffirmation of the existing reservation Indian-Federal Government relationship in all respects save the conferral of state-court jurisdiction to adjudicate private civil causes of action involving Indians. We agree with the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that § 4 (b) “is entirely consistent with, and in effect is a reaffirmation of, the law as it stood prior to its enactment.” Kirkwood v. Arenas, 243 F. 2d 863, 865-866 (1957). The absence of more precise language respecting state taxation of reservation Indians is entirely consistent with a general uncertainty in 1953 of the precise limits of state power to tax reservation Indians respecting other than their trust property, and a eon-gressional intent merely to reaffirm the existing law whatever subsequent litigation might determine it to be.

Finally, in construing this “admittedly ambiguous” statute, Board of Comm’rs v. Seber, 318 U. S., at 713, we must be guided by that “eminently sound and vital canon,” Northern Cheyenne Tribe v. Hollowbreast, 425 U. S. 649, 655 n. 7 (1976), that “statutes passed for the benefit of dependent Indian tribes . . . are to be liberally construed, doubtful expressions being resolved in favor of the Indians.” Alaska Pacific Fisheries v. United States, 248 U. S. 78, 89 (1918). See Choate v. Trapp, 224 U. S. 665, 675 (1912); Antoine v. Washington, 420 U. S. 194, 199-200 (1975). This principle of statutory construction has particular force in the face of claims that ambiguous statutes abolish by implication Indian tax immunities. McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm’n, 411 U. S., at 174; Squire v. Capoeman, 351 U. S. 1, 6-7 (1956); Carpenter v. Shaw, 280 U. S. 363, 366-367 (1930). “This is so because . . . Indians stand in a special relation to the federal government from which the states are excluded unless the Congress has manifested a clear purpose to terminate [a tax] immunity and allow states to treat Indians as part of the general community.” Oklahoma Tax Comm’n v. United States, 319 U. S. 598, 613-614 (1943) (Murphy, J., dissenting). What we recently said of a claim that Congress had terminated an Indian reservation by means of an ambiguous statute is equally applicable here to the respondent’s claim that § 4 (a) of Pub. L. 280 is a clear grant of power to tax, and hence a termination of traditional Indian immunity from state taxation:

“Congress was fully aware of the means by which termination could be effected. But clear-termination language was not employed in the . . . Act. This being so, we are not inclined to infer an intent to terminate .... A congressional determination to terminate must be expressed on the face of the Act or be clear from the surrounding circumstances and legislative history.” Mattz v. Arnett, 412 U. S. 481, 504-505 (1973).

The judgment of the Minnesota Supreme Court is

Reversed.

       The Minnesota Chippewa Tribe is a federally recognized tribe with a constitution approved by the Secretary of the Interior. Memorandum for United States as Amicus Curiae 2 n. 2. Its reservation was established by the Treaty of Feb. 22, 1855, 10 Stat. 1165.

       The McClanahan principle derives from a general pre-emption analysis, 411 U. S., at 172, that gives effect to the plenary and exclusive power of the Federal Government to deal with Indian tribes, United States v. Mazurie, 419 U. S. 544, 554 n. 11 (1975); Morton v. Mancari, 417 U. S. 535, 551-552 (1974); Board of Comm’rs v. Seber, 318 U. S. 705, 715-716 (1943), and “to regulate and protect the Indians and their property against interference even by a state,” id., at 715. This pre-emption analysis draws support from “the ‘backdrop’ of the Indian sovereignty doctrine,” Moe v. Salish & Kootenai Tribes, 425 U. S. 463, 475 (1976); “‘[t]he policy of leaving Indians free from state jurisdiction and control [which] is deeply rooted in the Nation’s history,’ ” McClanahan, 411 U. S., at 168; and the extensive federal legislative and administrative regulation of Indian tribes and reservations, id., at 173-179. “Congress has . . . acted consistently upon the assumption that the States have no power to regulate the affairs of Indians on a reservation,” Williams v. Lee, 358 U. S. 217, 220 (1959), and therefore “‘State laws generally are not applicable to tribal Indians on an Indian reservation except where Congress has expressly provided that State laws shall apply.’ ” McClanahan, supra, at 170-171 (quoting United States Department of the Interior, Federal Indian Law 845 (1958)).
      Of course, this pre-emption model usually yields different conclusions as to the application of state laws to tribal Indians who have left or never inhabited federally established reservations, or Indians “who do not possess the usual accoutrements of tribal self-government,” McClanahan, supra, at 167-168; see Mescolero Apache Tribe, 411 U. S., at 148-149.

       The State Supreme Court relied upon Omaha Tribe of Indians v. Peters, 382 F. Supp. 421 (1974), aff'd, 516 F. 2d 133 (CA8 1975), where the District Court for the District of Nebraska gave the same construction to Pub. L. 280 in upholding a state income tax levied against reservation Indian income.

       Petitioner had not properly raised a claim that his mobile home was in fact annexed to tribal trust land and therefore a part of the real property expressly excluded from taxation by § 4 (b). The Minnesota Supreme Court found, therefore, that the mobile home was personal property taxable as such under Minnesota law.

       This House Report and the Senate Report, S. Rep. No. 699, 83d Cong., 1st Sess. (1953), are in all material respects identical. All citations herein are to the House Report.

       Section 2 of Pub. L. 280, 18 U. S. C. § 1162, provides:
      “State jurisdiction over offenses committed by or against Indians in the Indian country.
      “(a) Each of the States or Territories listed in the following table shall have jurisdiction over offenses committed by or against Indians in the areas of Indian! country listed opposite the name of the State or Territory to the same extent that such State or Territory has jurisdiction over offenses committed elsewhere within the State or Territory, and the criminal laws of such State or Territory shall have the same force and effect within such Indian country as they have elsewhere within the State or Territory:
      “State or
      Territory of Indian country affected
      “Minnesota. All Indian country within the State, except the Red Lake Reservation.
      “(b) Nothing in this section shall authorize the alienation, encumbrance, or taxation of any real or personal property, including water rights, belonging to any Indian or any Indian tribe, band, or community that is held in trust by the United States or is subject to a restriction against alienation imposed by the United States; or shall authorize regulation of the use of such property in a manner inconsistent with any Federal treaty, agreement, or statute or with any regulation made pursuant thereto; or shall deprive any Indian or any Indian tribe, band, or community of any right, privilege, or immunity afforded under Federal treaty, agreement, or statute with respect to hunting, trapping, or fishing or the control, licensing, or regulation thereof.
      “(c) The provisions of sections 1152 and 1153 of this chapter shall not be applicable within the areas of Indian country listed in subsection (a) of this section as areas over which the several States have exclusive jurisdiction.”

       99 Cong. Rec. 9962, 10782-10784, 10928 (1953).

       See Israel & Smithson, Indian Taxation, Tribal Sovereignty and Economic Development, 49 N. D. L. Rev. 267, 292 (1973).

       Unpublished Transcript of Hearings on H. R. 1063 before the Subcommittee on Indian Affairs of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, 83d Cong., 1st Sess. (1953). The transcript was produced by the United States during the briefing of Tonasket v. Washington, 411 U. S. 451 (1973). The portion quoted in the text is reproduced in the Appendix in the instant case.

       Cf. Israel & Smithson, supra, n. 8, at 296:
      “A fair reading of these two clauses suggests that Congress never intended 'civil laws’ to mean the entire array of state noncriminal laws, but rather that Congress intended ‘civil laws’ to mean those laws which have to do with private rights and status. Therefore, ‘civil laws ... of general application to private persons or private property’ would include the laws of contract, tort, marriage, divorce, insanity, descent, etc., but would not include laws declaring or implementing the states’ sovereign powers, such as the power to tax, grant franchises, etc. These are not within the fair meaning of ‘private’ laws.”

       Moreover, this interpretation is consistent with the title of Pub. L. 280, H. R. Rep. No. 848, p. 3: “A bill to confer jurisdiction on the States . . . , with respect to criminal offenses and civil causes of action committed or arising on Indian reservations within such States, and for other purposes” (the other purposes being § 8’s withdrawal from the affected areas of the operation of the Federal Indian Liquor Laws, and §§ 6-7’s provision of a method whereby additional States could assume civil and criminal jurisdiction over Indian reservations). Additionally, this interpretation is buttressed by § 4 (c), which provides that “any tribal ordinance or custom . . . adopted by an Indian tribe ... in the exercise of any authority which it may possess shall, if not inconsistent with any applicable civil law of the State, be given full force and effect in the determination of civil causes of action pursuant to this section” (emphasis added). Finally, reading § 4 (a) as an integrated whole, with the reference to state civil law as intended to provide the rules of decision for the private civil causes of action over which state courts were granted jurisdiction is consistent with § 3 of Pub. L. 280, which codifies § 4 in Title 28 of the United States Code. That Title collects Acts of Congress governing jurisdiction and the judiciary. Section 4 would be expected to be codified in Title 25, governing Indian affairs if general state regulatory power over Indian reservations were being granted. Indeed, § 4 is entitled, as provided in Pub. L. 280 and codified at 28 U. S. C. § 1360, “State civil jurisdiction in actions to which Indians are parties.”

       Tribal groups in the affected States which were exempted from the coverage of Pub. L. 280 because they had “reasonably satisfactory law-and-order” organizations, had objected to the extension of state criminal and civil jurisdiction on various grounds. Three of the tribes exempted objected due to their fear of inequitable treatment of reservation Indians in the state courts. H. R. Rep. No. 848, pp. 7-8. Two of the objecting tribes expressed the fear that “the extension of State law to their reservations would result in the loss of various rights.” Id,., at 8. One tribe objected on the ground that its members were “not yet ready to be subjected to State laws.” Ibid. Certainly if abolition of traditional Indian immunity from state taxation, except insofar as expressly excluded, was an anticipated result of Pub. L. 280’s extension of civil jurisdiction, vehement Indian objections on this specific ground would also have been voiced.

       The legislative history of Pub. L. 280 does contain a congressional expression that “the Indians of several States have reached a stage of acculturation and development that malees desirable extension of State civil jurisdiction to the Indian country.” H. R. Rep. No. 848, p. 6. But not too much can be made of this un-elaborated statement; its thrust is too difficult to reconcile with the focus of Pub. L. 280 — extending state jurisdiction to those reservations with the least developed and most inadequate tribal legal institutions; presumably those tribes evincing the least “acculturation and development” in terms of the mainstream of American society. See Goldberg, Public Law 280: The Limits of State Jurisdiction over Reservation Indians, 22 U. C. L. A. L. Rev. 535, 543 (1975).

       Much has been written on the subject of a devastating impact on tribal governments that might result from an interpretation of § 4 as conferring upon state and local governments general civil regulatory control over reservation Indians. Santa Rosa Band of Indians v. Kings County, 532 F. 2d 655, 662-663, 666-668 (CA9 1975); Goldberg, supra; Note, The Extension of County Jurisdiction Over Indian Reservations in California: Public Law 280 and the Ninth Circuit, 25 Hastings L. J. 1451 (1974); Comment, Indian, Taxation: Underlying Policies and Present Problems, 59 Calif. L. Rev. 1261 (1971). The suggestion is that since tribal governments are disabled under many state laws from incorporating as local units of government, Goldberg, supra, at 581, general regulatory control might relegate tribal governments to a level below that of counties and municipalities, thus essentially destroying them, particularly if they might raise revenue only after the tax base had been filtered through many governmental layers of taxation. Present federal policy appears to be returning to a focus upon strengthening tribal self-government, see, e. g., Indian Financing Act of 1974, 88 Stat. 77, 25 U. S. C. § 1451 et seq. (1970 ed., Supp. Y); Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, 88 Stat. 2203, 25 U. S. C. § 450 et seq. (1970 ed., Supp. V), and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has expressed the view that courts “are not obliged in ambiguous instances to strain to implement [an assim-ilationist] policy Congress has now rejected, particularly where to do so will interfere with the present congressional approach to what is, after all, an ongoing relationship.” Santa Rosa Band of Indians v. Kings County, supra, at 663.

       68 Stat. 718, 25 U. S. C. § 564 (Klamath Tribe); 68 Stat. 768, 25 U. S. C. §§ 721-728 (Alabama and Coushatta Tribes of Texas); 68 Stat. 1099, 25 U. S. C. §§ 741-760 (Paiute Indians of Utah); 68 Stat. 250, 25 U. S. C. §§891-901 (Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin).

       Congress would have been fully justified in 1953 in being uncertain as to state power to levy a personal property tax on reservation Indians. No decision of this Court directly resolved the issue until Moe v. Salish & Kootenai Tribes, 425 U. S. 463 (1976), decided earlier this Term. It appears that the only decision of this Court prior to 1953 dealing with state power to levy a personal property tax on reservation Indians was United States v. Rickert, 188 U. S. 432, 443-444 (1903), which held exempt from state taxation personal Indian property purchased with federal funds. See United States Department of the Interior, Federal Indian Law 865 (1958).