Opinion ID: 18015
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Federal Courts Must Apply The Law of the State,

Text: Except in Matters Governed By the Federal Constitution Or By Acts of Congress 4 In Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938), the Supreme Court announced the governing principle that was to become the heart of the Erie doctrine: Except in matters governed by the Federal Constitution or by Acts of Congress, the law to be applied in any case is the law of the state. And whether the law of the state shall be declared by its Legislature in a statute or by its highest court in a decision is not a matter of federal concern. There is no federal general common law. Congress has no power to declare substantive rules of common law applicable in a state whether they be local in their nature or “general,” be they commercial law or a part of the law of torts. And no clause in the Constitution purports to confer such a power upon the federal courts. Id. at 78. The Court has stated that, in determining the content of the state law to be applied: the underlying substantive rule involved is based on state law and the State’s highest court is the best authority on its own law. If there be no decision by that court then federal authorities must apply what they find to be the state law after giving “proper regard” to relevant rulings of other courts of the State. Commissioner v. Estate of Bosch, 387 U.S. 456, 465 (1967); see also id. at 477 (“[A]bsent a recent judgment of the State’s highest court, state cases are only data from which the law must be derived. . . .” (Harlan, J., joined by Fortas, J., dissenting)). See, e.g., Jackson v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., 781 F.2d 394, 397-98 (5th Cir.) (en banc) (In filling a void in state law the federal court may not do merely what it thinks best, but rather must do what it thinks the state’s highest court would deem best.), 5 cert. denied, 478 U.S. 1022 (1986); Rogers v. Corrosion Prods., Inc., 42 F.3d 292, 295 (5th Cir.) (Although “[t]he decisions of lower state courts should be given some weight, . . . they are not controlling where the highest state court has not spoken on the subject.”), cert. denied, 515 U.S. 1160 (1995); Roginsky v. Richardson-Merrell, Inc., 378 F.2d 832, 851 (2d Cir. 1967) (“[W]hen a federal court must determine state law, it should not slavishly follow lower or even upper court decisions but ought to consider all the data the highest court of the state would use.”); 19 CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT ET AL., FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 4507, at 124 (2d ed. 1996) (“[A] responsible determination of state law involves something more than checking the digests for state court decisions on point[.]”); 19 WRIGHT ET AL., supra at 126-30 (“[T]he federal court must determine issues of state law as it believes the highest court of the state would determine them, not necessarily (although usually this will be the case) as they have been decided by other state courts in the past.”); 19 WRIGHT ET AL., supra at 157 (“Thus, intermediate appellate court decisions may be disregarded if the federal court is convinced by other persuasive data that the highest court of the forum state would decide the matter in a different fashion.” (citing, e.g., Industrial Indem. Co. v. Chapman and Cutler, 22 F.3d 1346, 1355 n.18 (5th Cir. 1994); Eljer Mfg., Inc. v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 972 F.2d 805, 814 (7th Cir. 1992), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 1005 (1993))). See also ERWIN CHEMERINSKY, FEDERAL JURISDICTION § 5.3, at 325 (3d ed. 1999) (“In other words, a federal court in a diversity case is to apply the law the state’s 6 highest court likely would apply. The federal court should consider lower state court decisions, but is not bound to apply and follow them if the federal court believes that they would not be affirmed by that state’s highest court. The federal court may consider all available material in deciding what law would be followed by a state.”).