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Are you wondering what Erie v Tompkins is all about?
Curious as to why it is a landmark case?
Stay to the end, and find out the facts behind the case and the rule of law.
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Hi, this is Beau Baez, and today I want to talk to you about Erie v Tompkins, the case
that created what we now call the Erie doctrine.
It all started on a dark night, when Tompkins was walking along a path next to railway tracks
owned by the Erie Railroad.
Something was protruding from a passing freight car, ripping one of Tompkins’ arms off
his body.
Tompkins hired a lawyer who, interestingly, only had use of one arm because the lawyer
had been infected with polio as a child.
The lawyer took the case against the large railroad on a contingency fee basis, most
likely hoping for a settlement rather than a protracted legal battle.
Because Tompkins was on the property belonging to Erie Railroad, the duty in a negligence case
is determined
by the status of Tompkins while he was on the property.
Pennsylvania state court decisions were clear that Tompkins was a trespasser.
This meant that the only duty the railway owed to him was to refrain from willful or
wanton conduct.
Under that test, Tompkins would lose.
But at this time in our history, litigants who sued in federal court under the diversity
jurisdiction statute could use something called general law.
General law was, really nothing more than case law that the federal courts had been developing for a hundred years
in diversity cases, based on an 1842 Supreme Court decision called Swift versus Tyson.
In Swift, Justice Story argued that case law was derived from natural law, and that
therefore any court, federal or state, could find it.
To that end, the federal courts had created their own set of rules, based on their understanding
of common law principles.
For example, under the facts in Tompkins, the federal general law was to not treat Tompkins
as a trespasser, because of the location of the foot path. Therefore under general federal law the railroad did owe Tompkins a duty of reasonable care.
So as you can imagine, Tompkins sued in federal district court, asserting the court’s diversity jurisdiction, since
he was from Pennsylvania and the railroad was incorporated in New York.
Tompkins won a jury verdict, which adjusted for inflation, is worth close to $600,000
in today’s dollars.
Erie railroad appealed and lost at the second circuit court of appeals.
They then appealed again, and surprisingly the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
In their briefs and during oral argument, neither side argued that Swift v Tyson should
be overturned.
Tompkins wanted to preserve Tyson to keep their jury verdict, and the railroad preferred
the general common law to the vagaries of state common law.
But the Supreme Court was looking for a chance to overturn Swift v Tyson, and they did.
The Court rejected that the common law was based on natural law principles, and explained
that the attempt for uniformity between federal general law and state common law had failed.
This leaves us with the following rule of law: when a federal court is exercising its
diversity jurisdiction, it will apply the common law of the state—federal general
law is abolished.
For Tompkins, this meant a loss because on remand the federal courts applied the tort
law of Pennsylvania, which meant he was a trespasser at the time of the injury.
The firm representing Tompkins also lost, as they went out of business because of all
the time and expense in litigating the case all the way to the Supreme Court.
Before I end the episode, let me mention one practice tip.
If you ever see a United States Supreme Court opinion dealing with a common law issue, look
at the date.
Cases before Erie are no longer binding law, even though they were decided by the Supreme
Court.
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