Montana Trout Unlimited v. Montana Department of Natural Resources & Conservation

¶45 I respectfully dissent from the Court’s conclusions that Trout Unlimited need not exhaust any administrative remedies before seeking judicial relief and that the District Court erred as a matter of law in concluding otherwise. In my view, the Court’s decision rests on a simple misreading of the plain language of the primary statutes at issue here. As a consequence, I also dissent from the Court’s resolution of the substantive matter presented in the second issue, which I believe must await another day.

¶46 I agree with the Court that, if a statute provides for administrative relief, an…