Opinion ID: 3219234
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Grounds for state-law certification

Text: Kentucky law permits federal courts to certify questions of law “which may be determinative of the cause then pending before the originating court and as to which it appears to the party or the originating court that there is no controlling precedent.” Ky. R. Civ. P. 76.37(1). The decision to certify a question to a state court “lies within the sound discretion” of the federal courts, which “generally will not trouble our sister state courts every time an arguably unsettled question of state law comes across our desks.” Pennington v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 553 F.3d 447, 450 (6th Cir. 2009) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). We may therefore decline certification even if the Kentucky Supreme Court “has not addressed the exact question at issue,” so long as Kentucky law provides “well-established principles to govern” the outcome of the case. Transamerica Ins. Co. v. Duro Bag Mfg. Co., 50 F.3d 370, 372 (6th Cir. 1995) (“Resort to the certification procedure is most appropriate when the question is new and state law is unsettled.”). Nos. 14-6406/6461 Smith, et al. v. Joy Technologies, Inc. Page 9