Applying Federal Courts Of Appeals' Precedent: Contrasting Approaches To Applying Court Of Appeals' Federal Law Holdings And Erie State Law Predictions

The precedential force of decisions by a federal circuit court of appeals might strike the typical practitioner as a settled issue.It is axiomatic, for example, that a federal circuit court of appeals' decision on questions of federal law binds subsequent panels of that court and district courts within that circuit, absent intervening contrary authority in the form of a federal statute, a decision from the court of appeal sitting en banc, or the Supreme Court of the United States.One might anticipate that a federal circuit court of appeals' "prediction" of state law in a diversity jurisdiction case pursuant to Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 1 would have similar force, but is this true?† B.A., Duquesne University, 1996; J.D., The