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In December 1801, William Marbury, Dennis Ramsay, Robert Townsend Hooe, and William Harper petitioned the Supreme Court for a rule requiring Secretary of State James Madison to show cause why a writ of mandamus should not issue commanding delivery of their commissions as justices of the peace in the District of Columbia. The applicants had been nominated by outgoing President John Adams. The Senate had advised and consented to the appointments. Commissions in due form were signed by the President with the seal of the United States affixed by the Secretary of State. During the proceedings the Court heard testimony from Department of State clerks Jacob Wagner and Daniel Brent, who described the preparation and handling of the commissions. Wagner recalled that two commissions had been signed but could not confirm whether those of the applicants were recorded. Brent believed Marbury's and Hooe's commissions were made out. Ramsay's was omitted by mistake. None of the Adams-signed commissions for District justices were recorded. Attorney General Levi Lincoln, who had acted as Secretary of State, testified that he had seen signed and sealed commissions but did not know whether any for the applicants were ever sent out. James Marshall's affidavit stated that on March 4, 1801, he received and later returned several commissions from the Secretary of State's office, including those for Hooe and Harper. The applicants also submitted the affidavit of Hazen Kimball confirming that commissions for Marbury and Hooe were in the office on March 3, 1801. Madison did not appear or show cause after the rule was served. The motion for the writ itself was heard in the February 1803 term.

These cases originated in the states of Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware. In each case, minors of the Negro race, through their legal representatives, sought the aid of the courts in obtaining admission to the public schools of their community on a nonsegregated basis after being denied admission to schools attended by white children under laws requiring or permitting segregation according to race. In the Kansas case, Negro children of elementary school age residing in Topeka brought an action in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas to enjoin enforcement of a Kansas statute which permits cities of more than 15,000 population to maintain separate school facilities for Negro and white students. The three-judge District Court found that segregation in public education has a detrimental effect upon Negro children but denied relief on the ground that the Negro and white schools were substantially equal with respect to buildings, transportation, curricula, and educational qualifications of teachers. In the South Carolina case, Negro children of both elementary and high school age residing in Clarendon County brought an action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina to enjoin enforcement of state constitutional and statutory provisions requiring segregation. The three-judge District Court denied relief, found the Negro schools inferior, and ordered the defendants to begin immediately to equalize the facilities while sustaining the validity of the contested provisions. In the Virginia case, Negro children of high school age residing in Prince Edward County brought a similar action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The three-judge District Court denied relief after finding the Negro school inferior in physical plant, curricula, and transportation and ordering equalization while upholding the segregation laws. In the Delaware case, Negro children of both elementary and high school age residing in New Castle County brought an action in the Delaware Court of Chancery to enjoin enforcement of state constitutional and statutory provisions requiring segregation. The Chancellor gave judgment for the plaintiffs and ordered their immediate admission to schools previously attended only by white children on the ground that the Negro schools were inferior with respect to teacher training, pupil-teacher ratio, extracurricular activities, physical plant, and time and distance involved in travel. The Supreme Court of Delaware affirmed. The cases reached the Supreme Court on direct appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1253 or on certiorari. Argument was heard in the 1952 Term, and reargument was heard in the 1953 Term on certain questions propounded by the Court, including the circumstances surrounding the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. In the cases other than Delaware, the courts below found that the Negro and white schools involved have been equalized, or are being equalized, with respect to buildings, curricula, qualifications and salaries of teachers, and other tangible factors. The Supreme Court consolidated the cases for consideration together because a common legal question justified their consideration despite different facts and local conditions.

Tompkins, a citizen of Pennsylvania, was injured on a dark night by a passing freight train of the Erie Railroad Company while walking along its right of way at Hughestown in that State. He claimed that the accident occurred through negligence in the operation or maintenance of the train. He asserted that he was rightfully on the premises as a licensee because he was on a commonly used beaten footpath which ran for a short distance alongside the tracks. He further alleged that he was struck by something which looked like a door projecting from one of the moving cars. To enforce that claim he brought an action in the federal court for southern New York, which had jurisdiction because the company is a corporation of that State. The Erie insisted that its duty to Tompkins was no greater than that owed to a trespasser. It contended, among other things, that its duty to Tompkins, and hence its liability, should be determined in accordance with the Pennsylvania law; that under the law of Pennsylvania, as declared by its highest court, persons who use pathways along the railroad right of way are to be deemed trespassers; and that the railroad is not liable for injuries to undiscovered trespassers resulting from its negligence, unless it be wanton or wilful. Tompkins denied that any such rule had been established by the decisions of the Pennsylvania courts. He contended that, since there was no statute of the State on the subject, the railroad's duty and liability is to be determined in federal courts as a matter of general law. The trial judge refused to rule that the Pennsylvania law precluded recovery. The jury brought in a verdict of $30,000. The judgment entered thereon was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals, which held that it was unnecessary to consider whether the law of Pennsylvania was as contended, because the question was one not of local, but of general, law and that upon questions of general law the federal courts are free, in the absence of a local statute, to exercise their independent judgment as to what the law is. Because of the importance of the question whether the federal court was free to disregard the alleged rule of the Pennsylvania common law, the Supreme Court granted certiorari.