Some thoughts on the state of Erie after Gasperini

Texas Law Review

Volumn 76, Issue 7, 1998, Pages

  Freer, Richard D ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0042706748     PISSN: 00404411     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (7)

1. 380 U.S. 460 (1965). The classic discussion of the case is John Hart Ely, The Irrepressible Myth of Erie, 87 HARV. L. REV. 693 (1974).
2. See Erie R.R. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938).
3. See Hanna, 380 U.S. at 471 (stating that a court can only decline to apply a federal rule if "the rule in question transgresses . . . the terms of the Enabling Act [or] constitutional restrictions").
4. U.S. CONST. art. VI, § 2.
5. Section 34 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 requires this result; it provides that "the laws of the several states, except where the constitution, treaties, or statutes shall otherwise provide, shall be regarded as the rules of decision in trials at common law in the courts of the United States in cases where they apply." Judiciary Act of 1789, ch. 19, 1 Stat. 73, 92 (1789) (codified as amended at 28 U.S.C. § 1652 (1994)).
6. Id. See 19 CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT, ARTHUR R. MILLER & EDWARD H. COOPER, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 4504, at 47 (2d ed. 1996) (summarizing Hanna as holding that "when there is no federal rule a federal court must decide whether to apply a state law according to the Rules of Decision Act guided by 'the twin aims' of the Erie case") [hereinafter WRIGHT, MILLER & COOPER].
7. If a federal constitutional provision applies, it governs the case. WRIGHT, MILLER & COOPER, supra note 6, § 4501, at 2 (asserting that the core of the Erie Doctrine requires federal courts to apply state law "except when the matter before the court is governed by the United States Constitution, an