Opinion ID: 1830354
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Inartful Questions

Text: In the present context we accept it as our responsibility to provide the Court of Appeals with such information about our statutory penalty rule as will best assist that Court in resolving the issue before it. The success and usefulness of our efforts depend upon our understanding just what information the Court of Appeals needs. With deference that Court has not worded the primary question  Question No. 1  as artfully as it might. In Question No. 1, we are asked whether Section 11-3-23 is ... general in nature... .  as though we or any other group of judicial linguists could provide a meaningful answer to such a vague question, and as though something turns on the answer. The question then asks whether the statute is ... general in nature so as to establish a `substantive' rule of damages... . Implicit, of course, is the wholly dubious notion that a statute general in nature (whatever that means) is automatically substantive. [5] The final step in the question's syllogism is ... which a federal court, sitting in diversity, must apply. In short, the Court of Appeals in Question No. 1, reasons that if the statute is general, it is substantive, and if it is substantive the federal court must apply it. Experience suggests that generality and substance, like beauty, are in the eye of the beholder. [6] We, therefore, take the Court of Appeals at its word when it makes clear that we are not to consider ourselves limited by the phrasing of the certified questions. Walters v. Inexco Oil Company, 670 F.2d at 478 fn. 7.