Swift v. Tyson

Swift v. Tyson
Swift v. Tyson
	Supreme Court of the United States
Decided January 25, 1842
Full case name	John Swift v. George W. Tyson
Citations	41 U.S. 1 ( more ) 16 Pet. 1; 10 L. Ed. 865; 1842 U.S. LEXIS 345
Case history
Prior	On a certificate of division from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York
Holding
	Federal courts were to apply state statutory law, but not common law, to state cases.
Court membership
	Chief Justice Roger B. Taney Associate Justices Joseph Story · Smith Thompson ; John McLean · Henry Baldwin ; James M. Wayne · John Catron ; John McKinley · Peter V. Daniel
Case opinions
Majority	Story, joined by unanimous
Concur/dissent	Catron
	Overruled by
	Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins (1938).

Last updated July 05, 2023

Swift v. Tyson, 41 U.S. (16 Pet.) 1 (1842), was a case brought in diversity in the Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York on a bill of exchange accepted in New York in which the Supreme Court of the United States determined that United States federal courts that heard cases brought under their diversity jurisdiction under the Judiciary Act of 1789 must apply statutory state laws when the state legislatures in question had spoken on the issue, but did not have to apply the state's common law if the state legislatures had not spoken on the issue.^[1]

Statute

Section 34 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 states that "the laws of the several states, except where the constitution, treaties or statutes of the United States shall otherwise recognise or provide, shall be regarded as rules of decision in trials at common law, in the courts of the United States, in cases where they apply."

Decision

The Court decided that a bona fide holder of a negotiable instrument for valuable consideration, without any notice of the facts that implicate its validity as between the antecedent parties, if he takes it under an endorsement made before the same becomes due, holds the title unaffected by those facts and may recover thereon although, as between the antecedent parties, the transaction may be without any legal validity.

It decided that Section 34 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 does not restrict federal courts hearing diversity of citizenship cases from deriving their "own" common law.

It sustained the determination of the lower federal court that under the general common law (with reference to general principles of commercial jurisprudence), a pre-existing debt constitutes a valuable consideration for a negotiable instrument.

Reasoning

Common law is not strictly local; court decisions aspire towards true interpretations, which are to be sought not in the decisions themselves but in general principles and doctrines. Court decisions do not constitute laws or authority as to what the law is but only evidence of what the law is.

Strictly local law consists of the state's positive statutes, constructions thereof adopted by state courts, and rights and titles to things having a permanent locality, such as to real estate and other matters immovable and intraterritorial in their nature and character.

The "common" law -- which is not local -- includes the rights and titles created in contracts or other instruments of a commercial nature, which are to be sought in general principles of commercial jurisprudence.

In Section 34 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, "the laws of the several states" referred to state laws that were strictly local and so not to a state's "common" law. Thus, it did not bind federal courts to state commercial jurisprudence. The Federal jurisdiction is free to interpret the general common law.

The Supreme Court, therefore, sustained the determination of the lower federal court that under the general common law, a pre-existing debt constitutes a valuable consideration for a negotiable instrument.

Related Research Articles

Joseph Story was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving from 1812 to 1845. He is most remembered for his opinions in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee and United States v. The Amistad, and especially for his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, first published in 1833. Dominating the field in the 19th century, this work is a cornerstone of early American jurisprudence. It is the second comprehensive treatise on the provisions of the U.S. Constitution and remains a critical source of historical information about the forming of the American republic and the early struggles to define its law.

Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court held that there is no general American federal common law and that U.S. federal courts must apply state law, not federal law, to lawsuits between parties from different states that do not involve federal questions. In reaching this holding, the Court overturned almost a century of federal civil procedure case law, and established the foundation of what remains the modern law of diversity jurisdiction as it applies to United States federal courts.

Federal common law is a term of United States law used to describe common law that is developed by the federal courts, instead of by the courts of the various states. The United States is the only country to combine the creation of common law doctrines with a complete federalism, wherein the national supreme court has virtually no power to review state court decisions to determine whether the state courts have followed state laws. The High Court of Australia is sometimes said to have federal common law, but because all state and territorial courts are directly appealable to the High Court, this is indistinguishable from a general common law. In contrast, the United States Supreme Court has effectively barred the creation of federal common law in areas traditionally under the authority of state courts. Nevertheless, there are several areas where federal common law continues to govern.

The Erie doctrine is a fundamental legal doctrine of civil procedure in the United States which mandates that a federal court called upon to resolve a dispute not directly implicating a federal question must apply state substantive law.

The Rules of Decision Act mandates that substantive state law be applied in state cases, unless the United States Constitution, treaties of the United States, or acts of Congress say otherwise. The federal courts' authority to exercise general federal common law in state cases sitting in diversity jurisdiction was made possible by the Rules of Decision Act. This was later overturned in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins. In significant part, the rule authorizes congress to make rules that must be followed by the federal courts. This later becomes problematic when a collision between substantive state right laws conflict with federal rules of procedure.

The Taney Court heard thirty criminal law cases, approximately one per year. Notable cases include Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), United States v. Rogers (1846), Ableman v. Booth (1858), Ex parte Vallandigham (1861), and United States v. Jackalow (1862).

References

↑ Swift v. Tyson, 41 U.S. (16 Pet. ) 1 (1842).

External links

Works related to Swift v. Tyson at Wikisource
Text of Swift v. Tyson, 41 U.S. (16 Pet. )1(1842) is available from: Findlaw Justia Library of Congress OpenJurist

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[1] Swift v. Tyson, 41 U.S. (16 Pet. ) 1 (1842).

[1]