The Muckleshoot Indian Tribe initiated the first action, seeking declaratory judgment and clarification of the phrase "to the present environs of Seattle," regarding the extent of the Lummi Indian Tribe's usual and accustomed fishing grounds. In a previous case, the Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded a district court's interpretation of that phrase because the district court relied on evidence not in the original record before Judge Boldt in 1974.[1] In that case, the district court had relied on a latter-day interpretation of testimony provided by the expert whom Judge Boldt consulted before issuing the 1974 decision. The Ninth Circuit did not resolve the issue, but instead remanded the case to the district court with the instruction that it was critical to determine Judge Boldt's intended meaning of the phrase at the time he wrote his opinion.[2] By remanding, the Ninth Circuit "did not freeze the record," but suggested the district court could consider additional evidence "if it shed light on the understanding that Judge Boldt had of the geography at the time."[3] On remand, the district court supplemented Judge Boldt's language with statements by a geography expert to determine where the northern environs of Seattle were at the time of the Boldt Decision. This testimony was based on geography--not on latter-day interpretations of documents before Judge Boldt--and suggested that the environs of Seattle extended to Edmonds.[4]

The Ninth Circuit affirmed, rejecting the Lummi Tribe's attempt to portray the geographer's testimony as equivalent to a latter-day supplementation with material unknown to Judge Boldt. The Lummi Tribe also argued that by using the word "to," Judge Boldt meant "through," and therefore, the phrase "to the present environs of Seattle" really meant through the southern suburbs of Seattle. The Ninth Circuit rejected this argument, noting that "because the Lummi were fishing from the northern part of Puget Sound south 'to' the environs of Seattle, the fishing grounds must end where those environs begin."[5] The Ninth Circuit concluded that if Judge Boldt intended to hold that the Lummi fishing grounds extended through the southern suburbs of Seattle, he would have said so explicitly. Therefore, the court held that "to the present environs of Seattle" means that the Lummi Tribe's fishing waters extend only to the northern suburbs of Seattle, as they existed in 1974.[6]