Opinion ID: 1120753
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Pullman cases

Text: A principal reason for state certification statutes was the difficulty associated with so-called Pullman abstention cases in the federal courts. Wright & Miller, § 4248 at 157-65. In Railroad Comm'n v. Pullman Co., 312 U.S. 496, 61 S.Ct. 643, 85 L.Ed. 971 (1941), the Supreme Court of the United States held that the federal courts should abstain from deciding a case where an unsettled question of state law may be dispositive of a claim that state action violated the federal constitution, because the answer to the state law question may obviate the need to decide the federal constitutional question. In such cases, the parties typically were ordered by the federal court to file a declaratory judgment action in the state trial court in order to resolve the unsettled state law question, and the federal action was held in abeyance pending final resolution of the state court action. Wright & Miller § 4242 at 32. Compared with the potentially long wait involved in Pullman -type abstention situations, certification between jurisdictions, apparently first utilized by the Supreme Court of the United States in Clay v. Sun Insurance Office, 363 U.S. 207, 80 S.Ct. 1222, 4 L.Ed.2d 1170 (1960), [6] provides a relatively expeditious and efficient means to handle the state law issues. Certification as a generic process, however, has grown beyond its roots to include certification of ordinary state law questions in federal court cases between private parties and certification from state appellate courts in cases where the law of another state may govern. Wright & Miller § 4248 at 157-58. The Oregon certification statutes do not discriminate among the range of potential kinds of certification cases, but the differences can be pertinent to our exercise of discretion. Acceptance of certification in Pullman -type abstention cases is important to the smooth functioning of the federal judicial system, because the alternative to certification is federal court abstention and the attendant delay until resolution of the derivative state court declaratory judgment action (including trial, the right to a direct appeal, and the right to seek discretionary review after the direct appeal). Except in unusual circumstances (examples of which do not readily come to mind), we normally will accept certification in Pullman -type abstention cases.