Talk:Erie doctrine

message: The first paragraph seems to be self-contradictory.  It starts by stating: "It is important to note that the Erie doctrine does not apply to cases involving federal statutory law, but only those cases that are in federal court because of diversity jurisdiction."  Fair enough, but the same paragraph closes with the following statement: "An 'Erie' problem does not necessarily have to involve a diversity case, although the landmark cases were all diversity cases."
The court has stated that Erie is not just a diversity doctrine. Meaning, it applies to cases that come through subject matter jurisdiction statutes other than s. 1332. However, outside of s. 1332 cases, it is less likely to be an issue, because in, say, 1331/1343 cases, there aren't likely to be many state law issues, where the cause of action is created by a federal statute (42 U.S.C. 1983).  Generally speaking, in non-1332 cases, and in 1331 cases, it will be the case that federal law exists to answer the question. Otherwise the case probably wouldn't be in federal court. --However-- if that hypothetical 1331/1343 case did somehow involve a question of state law, the court would have to resolve it as the state would, not according to some "higher body" of brooding and omnipresent common law. The article isn't well-worded yet, but this is hard stuff to explain. However, the gist of what's written is not inaccurate. Does this clear it up in any way? Non Curat Lex (talk) 09:56, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contradiction in first paragraph? 

message: But since I'm studying for my own civ pro final, I don't have time to do anything with it.  The discussion of the two approaches for when there is a Federal Rule involved vs. when it's a mere federal practice is confusing and innaccurate.  We need someone with civil procedure expertise to step in here.  See http://www.west.net/~smith/erie.htm for the proper analysis of an Erie conflict (it's at the bottom of the page).
Agree. It gives some information to a person who has never heard of it and has no idea what it means, but it is undetailed and confusing enough to be misleading. It is misleading to state, without more, that Erie cites no provision of the Constitution that Swift violated. I have many sources that can be added to document this article, and some fixes I'd like to make, so I will add this to my personal watchlist of articles to work on. Non Curat Lex (talk) 23:43, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: This needs some work

message: The note at the top says this article has no sources. However, this is not the case. The sources are simply not in footnotes in the normal Wikipedia style, but are instead provided in the text according to the common practice in legal writing. Should the sources be changed to footnotes or should the note that it has no sources be removed? SirJello37 (talk) 15:36, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm removing the tag.  There are a few things that could be sourced better, but there are quite a few sources in the article already.  Also, per WP:REF, "Editors are free to use any method [of citation]; no method is preferred." --Philosopher Let us reason together. 16:08, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Sources