Erie Railroad v. Tompkins · ¶10

The Court in applying the rule of § 34 to equity cases, in Mason v. United States, 260 U. S. 545, 559, said: “The statute, however, is merely declarative of the rule which would exist in the absence of the statute.” The federal courts assumed, in' the broad field of “general law,” the power to declare rules of decision which Congress was confessedly without power to enact as statutes. Doubt was repeatedly expressed as'to the correctness of the construction given § 34, and as to the soundness of the rule which it introduced. But it was the more recent research of a competent scholar, who. examined the original document, which established that the construction given to it by the Court was erroneous; and that 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…

U. S. Reports, bound volume
U. S. Reports, volume 304, at 64 (Library of Congress) · transcription: Caselaw Access Project
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