Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins

Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 31, 1938 Decided April 25, 1938
Full case name	Erie Railroad Company v. Harry J. Tompkins
Citations	304 U.S. 64 (more) 58 S. Ct. 817; 82 L. Ed. 1188; 1938 U.S. LEXIS 984; 11 Ohio Op. 246; 114 A.L.R. 1487
Case history
Prior	Judgment for plaintiff, S.D.N.Y.; affirmed, 90 F.2d 603 (2nd. Cir. 1937); cert. granted, 302 U.S. 671 (1937).
Subsequent	On remand, reversed, judgment directed for defendant, 98 F.2d 49 (2nd Cir. 1938)
Holding
Under the Rules of Decision Act, federal district courts in diversity jurisdiction cases must apply state law, including the judicial precedents of states' highest courts, where it does not conflict with federal law. There is no general federal common law. Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded.
Court membership
Chief Justice Charles E. Hughes Associate Justices James C. McReynolds · Louis Brandeis Pierce Butler · Harlan F. Stone Owen Roberts · Benjamin N. Cardozo Hugo Black · Stanley F. Reed
Case opinions
Majority	Brandeis, joined by Hughes, Stone, Roberts, Black
Concurrence	Reed
Dissent	Butler, joined by McReynolds
Cardozo took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Laws applied
U.S. Const. art. III (implied); Judiciary Act of 1789 § 34 (now 28 U.S.C. § 725); Rules of Decision Act (now 28 U.S.C. § 1652)
This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings
Swift v. Tyson (1842)

Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court held that the United States does not have a general federal common law and that U.S. federal courts must apply state law, not federal law, to lawsuits between parties from different states that do not involve federal questions. In reaching this holding, the Court overturned almost a century of federal civil procedure case law, and established the foundation of the modern law of diversity jurisdiction.

Although the decision is not widely known among ordinary laypeople, most American lawyers and legal scholars regard Erie as one of the most important decisions in U.S. Supreme Court history.^[1][2] The decision "goes to the heart" of the American system of federalism and the relationship between the U.S. federal government and the states.^[1]