to water rights. The district court granted the defendant's motion on ground of abstention doctrine, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed, holding that abstention was inappropriate. Majority opinion Justice Brennan wrote for the majority. He first determined that the McCarran Amendment did not create an express or implied exception to § 1331 or § 1345, and then turned to the issue of whether or not the district court should have dismissed the suit because of the concurrent proceedings in state court. The McCarran Amendment permitted adjudication of the Native American tribes' rights in state court, and Brennan held there was no strong policy argument to eliminate the state courts' jurisdiction in this area. Moreover, the circumstances necessitating abstention were not present here, largely because this case did not present complex issues of state law or policy to be resolved, as was the case in past abstention cases such as Railroad Commission v. Pullman Co. (1941), Burford v. Sun Oil Co. (1943), or Louisiana Power & Light Co. v. City of Thibodaux (1959). Nor was this an attempt to enjoin state criminal proceedings, as in Younger v. Harris (1971). However, Brennan also ruled that even though the case did not fall into any of the previously recognized categories of abstention, certain principles of judicial administration militated in favor of upholding the district court's decision to dismiss the case. Even though dismissal of a federal suit to avoid duplicative litigation was something of an exceptional nature, Brennan determined that it was permissible in some circumstances. He compared this case to an in rem action over the disposition of property, wherein a court first assuming jurisdiction may exercise jurisdiction to the exclusion of other courts. He listed factors federal courts may consider in determining the appropriateness of dismissal where concurrent jurisdiction exists: Inconvenience of the federal forum The desirability of avoiding piecemeal litigation The order in which jurisdiction was obtained by the concurrent forums Brennan concluded by explaining that the whole policy advanced by the McCarran Amendment was to avoid "piecemeal adjudication of water rights," which would lead to concurrent litigation with inconsistent outcomes. Congress was well aware of pre-existing state procedures to determine water rights when it passed the McCarran Amendment. Furthermore, the federal government was already involved in pending state lawsuits in three other Water Divisions (4, 5, and 6), there was a 300-mile distance