Court Opinion

ID: 9473936
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:44:00.269087+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:48.517244
License: Public Domain

McKAY, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I fully concur in the court’s analysis of Oklahoma law and its affirmance of the judgment. I write separately to express my concern about what I consider an unnecessary citation to cases which adopt the so-called “great deference” rule where unsettled issues of state law are involved. Bishop v. Wood, 426 U.S. 341, 346 n. 10, 96 S.Ct. 2074, 2078 n. 10, 48 L.Ed.2d 684 (1976) (“great deference”); Township of Hillsborough v. Cromwell, 326 U.S. 620, 629-30, 66 S.Ct. 445, 451, 90 L.Ed. 358 (1946) (“great deference”); Huddleston v. Dwyer, 322 U.S. 232, 237, 64 S.Ct. 1015, 1018, 88 L.Ed. 1246 (1944) (“if not indispensable, ... at least a highly desirable and important aid to [the] determination of state law questions”); Budde v. Ling-Temco-Vought, Inc., 511 F.2d 1033, 1036 (10th Cir.1975) (“great weight and credence”); Binkley v. Manufacturers Life Ins. Co., 471 F.2d 889, 891 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 877, 94 S.Ct. 130, 38 L.Ed.2d 122 (1973) (“clearly erroneous”). This anomolous rule could more accurately be described as “the local judge as expert witness on matters of state law” rule, and in my opinion, is based on a rationale that cannot bear scrutiny.
I concede that the majority has stated the “great deference” rule in narrow terms, thus avoiding the indefensible problems created by the rule in its extreme form. In its worst form, the rule suggests that the “clearly erroneous” standard should be applied to rulings on issues of state law by a district court judge. Such an extreme application of the rule not only would undermine the obvious purpose of appeals to a collegial court, where collective consideration is one of the underlying notions, but would have the wasteful effect of leaving an issue unsettled when subsequently considered by parties, lawyers, and other district judges. If, as is true in many cases, either of two interpretations of state law would be rational, we would be required to affirm consecutive conflicting interpretations by two judges sitting in the same state, the untenable effect of which would be to leave the issue of law unsettled until the state court of appropriate authority finally has an opportunity to rule on the issue. Of all the duties of an appellate court, one of the most important is to settle matters before it, not only for the benefit of the parties to the suit but also for the guidance of the public and the trial courts.
This mischief results from an unsatisfactory rationale for the rule — i.e., that the trial court is more experienced in matters of state law. Of course, it is not unknown for the inverse to be true, where a state judge or justice is appointed to the federal bench to review an inexperienced district judge. In any event, unless we are to assume some kind of extrajudicial contacts by the trial court, that court is limited to the same menu of state cases that the court of appeals has — even if in greater volume. Thus, the trial judge properly is limited to the same classic analysis derived from the precedents and the facts that confine an appeals court. This is the stuff of which standard law school fare is made. If the trial court has more seasoning in that process for state issues, the benefit of its experience will be conveyed to the appeals court by the trial court’s opinion.
Properly understood and rationalized, the notion expressed in the old Supreme Court case of Propper v. Clark, 337 U.S. 472, *1422486-87, 69 S.Ct. 1333, 1341-42, 93 L.Ed. 1480 (1949) calls for us to do nothing different when dealing with issues of state law than what we should be doing in all other cases; we should begin with the presumption of affirmance based on the perfectly sound principle that the first duty of the courts is to settle matters without wasting judicial resources. Thus “great deference” should be paid to the trial court’s decision because that which is settled should not be unsettled without substantial reason — not because the trial court is an “expert witness.” Indeed, because of experience, particular district judges may come to their appointments with vastly more expertise in some areas of federal law than members of the court of appeals will ever achieve. If the present rationale were sound, the “great deference” rule should be applied in those cases as well. Hence, if there is appellate evil to be corrected, it lies in infidelity to proper deference in all cases, not in a lack of special deference when issues of state law are involved.
If all we are saying by repetition of the rule is that there is an important judicial economy in deference, we need not state the rule; we only need to practice it. If more than that is meant, the inevitable effect is to imply that our decision interpreting state law is less than final, an idea to which I cannot willingly assent. State issues often come to us before the state court of last resort has had an opportunity to rule on the issue. Until the state court does rule, our decisions should be just as final and binding on federal trial courts as if we were the court of final jurisdiction on that issue.
I suggest that the same problem exists with the growing trend toward treating traditional issues of law (such as contract interpretation) as issues of fact. The public has a right to know that when a construction of particular contract language has been made (often uniform clauses used in many contracts), they can rely on those determinations until overturned by the same process through which other rules of law are overturned. But these issues are not before us. I use them only to illustrate the importance of having appellate rules of review grounded in understandable and defensible theory.
I do not understand this panel to be saying that if a trial judge sitting in Oklahoma in a future case considers the arguments raised by the appellant in this case to be “reasonable,” we will affirm that judgment as well. With that understanding, I repeat my full concurrence in the court’s disposition of the issues in this case.