Eerie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins
Must federal courts hearing cases based on diversity of citizenship between the parties apply the substantive law of the relevant state — including that state's common law as declared by its courts — or may they instead apply an independent body of 'general federal common law'?
The Decision
6-2 decision · Opinion by Louis D. Brandeis · 1938
Majority Opinion— Louis D. Brandeisconcurring ↓dissent ↓
In a landmark 6–2 decision authored by Justice Louis D. Brandeis, the Supreme Court reversed the lower courts and overruled Swift v. Tyson, the 96-year-old precedent that had allowed federal courts to develop and apply their own body of 'general common law' independent of state court rulings. The Court declared, in one of the most famous lines in American law: 'There is no federal general common law.'
Justice Brandeis grounded his reasoning on multiple pillars. First, he pointed to historical scholarship by legal historian Charles Warren, which had uncovered evidence suggesting that the authors of the Judiciary Act of 1789 intended the phrase 'laws of the several states' in the Rules of Decision Act to include not just state statutes but also state common law as interpreted by state courts. Under this reading, Swift v. Tyson had been based on a misunderstanding of the original statute from its very beginning.
Second, Brandeis argued that the Swift doctrine had proven to be a practical disaster. Rather than creating a uniform, harmonious body of commercial law — which had been its original aspiration — it had produced the opposite result. It created a system in which two people with identical legal disputes in the same state could receive different outcomes depending solely on whether they ended up in state or federal court. This encouraged gamesmanship and forum shopping, as litigants like Tompkins strategically chose federal court to access more favorable legal rules. Brandeis characterized this state of affairs as fundamentally unjust and a source of 'discrimination' against citizens who could not access diversity jurisdiction.
Third, and most controversially, Brandeis declared that the Swift doctrine was not merely unwise but unconstitutional. He reasoned that neither Congress nor the federal courts possessed the constitutional authority to create substantive rules of common law governing matters like personal-injury claims that properly fell within the domain of the states. Allowing federal courts to override state common law on such topics, he argued, was an invasion of rights reserved to the states under the constitutional structure of federalism. Because Pennsylvania law should have governed Tompkins's claim, and because the lower courts had applied a different legal standard, the case was sent back for a new determination under Pennsylvania's actual rules.
The decision fundamentally reshaped the relationship between federal and state courts. After Erie, when a federal court hears a case solely because the parties are from different states, that court must apply the substantive law of the relevant state — including that state's common law as interpreted by its own courts. Federal courts retain the authority to apply their own procedural rules, but they cannot substitute their own judgment on matters of state substantive law. Justice Cardozo did not participate in the case due to illness.
Concurring Opinions
Justice Stanley F. Reed wrote a notable concurrence in which he agreed that Swift v. Tyson should be overruled but disagreed with the majority's reasoning that the Swift doctrine was unconstitutional. Reed argued the case could and should have been resolved purely as a matter of statutory interpretation — that the Rules of Decision Act properly required federal courts to follow state common law — without reaching the broader and more dramatic constitutional question.
Dissenting Opinions
Pierce Butlerjoined by James Clark McReynolds
Justice Butler objected primarily on procedural grounds, arguing that the Court should not have overruled Swift v. Tyson when neither party had asked it to do so and the issue had not been properly briefed or argued. He believed it was inappropriate for the Court to reach out and decide such a momentous constitutional question on its own initiative.
- The question of whether to overrule Swift v. Tyson was not raised by either party and was not properly before the Court, making the majority's decision to address it a violation of the Court's own principles of judicial restraint
- Overruling a 96-year-old precedent without full briefing and argument on that specific question was imprudent and undermined the stability and predictability of the law
Background & Facts
On a dark July night in 1934, Harry Tompkins was walking along a well-worn footpath that ran beside the Erie Railroad's tracks near Hughestown, Pennsylvania. As a train passed, something protruding from one of the cars — described as a dark object, possibly an open door — struck Tompkins and knocked him down. He suffered devastating injuries, including the loss of his right arm.
Tompkins was a citizen of Pennsylvania. The Erie Railroad Company was incorporated in New York. Because the parties were from different states, Tompkins had the option of filing his lawsuit in federal court under what is known as 'diversity jurisdiction' — a provision in the Constitution that allows federal courts to hear disputes between citizens of different states. Tompkins chose to file his injury claim in the federal district court for the Southern District of New York, and this choice of court was strategic.
Under Pennsylvania state law, as interpreted by Pennsylvania's own courts, a person walking along railroad tracks on a path like the one Tompkins used would likely be treated as a trespasser. That classification meant the railroad would only be liable if it had been wantonly or willfully negligent — a very high bar for Tompkins to clear. However, under a nearly century-old Supreme Court doctrine established in the 1842 case Swift v. Tyson, federal courts were not required to follow state court interpretations of common law (judge-made law). Instead, federal judges could apply their own view of 'general common law,' which in negligence cases tended to be more favorable to plaintiffs. Tompkins filed in federal court precisely to take advantage of this more favorable standard.
The federal trial court applied the general federal common law rather than Pennsylvania's stricter rule, and the jury awarded Tompkins $30,000 in damages. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the verdict, finding the trial court's approach proper under Swift v. Tyson. Erie Railroad appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that Pennsylvania law should have governed.
Remarkably, neither party actually asked the Supreme Court to overrule Swift v. Tyson — the Court raised that question on its own initiative, signaling that the justices saw an opportunity to address a problem that had troubled the American legal system for nearly a hundred years.
The Arguments
The railroad argued that the federal courts should have applied Pennsylvania law to determine its duty of care to Tompkins. Under Pennsylvania's common law, Tompkins was a trespasser on railroad property, and the railroad therefore owed him only the limited duty to avoid wanton or willful negligence — a standard Tompkins likely could not meet.
- Pennsylvania courts had consistently held that people walking along railroad tracks on informal footpaths were trespasses owed only a minimal duty of care
- Applying a different standard of care in federal court than in Pennsylvania state court created an unfair system where the outcome of a case depended on which court heard it, not on the actual law of the state where the injury occurred
- The Swift v. Tyson doctrine had been widely criticized for encouraging forum shopping — the practice of choosing a court strategically to get a more favorable legal rule rather than the one that should naturally apply
Tompkins argued that under the longstanding Swift v. Tyson doctrine, the federal court properly exercised its independent judgment on questions of general common law. Since the general common law recognized an ordinary negligence standard, the jury verdict in his favor was correctly decided.
- The Swift v. Tyson doctrine had been the law of the land for nearly a century and provided a stable framework for federal court decision-making
- The Judiciary Act's Rules of Decision Act, which directed federal courts to apply the 'laws of the several states,' referred only to state statutes, not to state judicial decisions on common-law questions
- The jury had heard the evidence and found the railroad negligent, and the lower courts had properly upheld this verdict under established legal principles