Professional Documents
Culture Documents
I. Heading
Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S. Ct. 817,
82 L. Ed. 1188 (1938)
III. Facts
Tompkins brought a lawsuit in federal court in New York
under diversity of citizenship jurisdiction against the
Erie Railroad for personal injuries sustained due to
negligence. Tompkins had been walking along the railroad
tracks in Pennsylvania when he was hit by an open railcar
door. Under Pennsylvania law, where the accident occurred,
the railroad owed no duty to Tompkins. But this was the
"law" according to the Pennsylvania courts. There was no
statute of the state legislature declaring the law. In the
federal courts, the law is that the railroad has a duty to
Tompkins.
V. Issue
Does the law of the several states applied by the federal
courts as rules of decision in civil cases include all the
decisional or common law of the states?
VI. Holding
Yes, on substantive law matters.
VII. Reasoning
According to scholarly research, Swift misinterpreted s34
of the Federal Judiciary Act of 1789. The construction
given to it by the court was erroneous; the purpose of the
section was merely to make certain that, in all matters
except those in which some federal law is controlling, the
federal courts exercising jurisdiction in diversity of
citizenship cases would apply as their rules of decision
the law of the State, unwritten as well as written.