federal general common law

Harry 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 also claimed 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. 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 Railroad Company denied liability, and the case was tried by a jury. The railroad insisted that its duty to Tompkins was no greater than that owed to a trespasser. It contended 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. The railroad further contended that it is not liable for injuries to undiscovered trespassers resulting from its negligence unless the conduct is 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 Pennsylvania law precluded recovery. The jury brought in a verdict of $30,000, and the judgment entered thereon was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Erie had contended that application of the Pennsylvania rule was required by section 34 of the Federal Judiciary Act of September 24, 1789. 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.

Salve Regina College is an institution of higher education located in Newport, Rhode Island. Sharon L. Russell was admitted to the college and began her studies as a freshman in 1982. The following year, Russell sought admission to the college’s nursing department to pursue a bachelor of science degree in nursing. She was accepted by the department and began her nursing studies in the fall of 1983. Russell was five feet six inches tall and weighed in excess of 300 pounds when she was accepted in the nursing program. Her weight became a topic of commentary and concern by officials of the nursing program immediately after the 1983 school year began. Her first year in the program was marked by a series of confrontations and negotiations concerning her obesity and its effect upon her ability to complete the clinical requirements safely and satisfactorily. During her junior year, Russell signed a document that was designated as a contract. The contract conditioned her further participation in the nursing program upon weekly attendance at a weight-loss seminar and a realized average loss of two pounds per week. When she failed to meet these commitments, she was asked to withdraw from the program and did so. Russell transferred to a nursing program at another college but had to repeat her junior year in order to satisfy the transferee institution’s two-year residency requirement. She also underwent surgery for her obesity. In 1987, Russell successfully completed her nursing education and is now a registered nurse. Soon after leaving Salve Regina College, Russell filed this civil action in the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island. She asserted claims based on intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, and nonperformance by the college of its implied agreement to educate her. Subject-matter jurisdiction in the District Court was based on diversity of citizenship. The parties agree that the law of Rhode Island applies to all substantive aspects of the action. At the close of plaintiff-respondent’s case in chief, the District Court directed a verdict for the individual defendants on all three of the remaining claims and for the college on the claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy. The court denied the college’s motion for a directed verdict on the breach-of-contract claim. At the close of all the evidence, the college renewed its motion for a directed verdict on the contract claim. The District Court denied the motion and submitted the breach-of-contract claim to the jury. The jury returned a verdict for Russell and determined that the damages were $30,513.40. Judgment was entered. The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed the judgment. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve the conflict among the circuits concerning the appropriate standard of appellate review.

In July 2004, two groups of plaintiffs filed separate complaints in the Southern District of New York against the same five major electric power companies. The first group included eight States and New York City. The second group joined three nonprofit land trusts. The defendants were four private companies and the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federally owned corporation. According to the complaints, the defendants are the five largest emitters of carbon dioxide in the United States, with collective annual emissions of 650 million tons constituting 25 percent of emissions from the domestic electric power sector. The plaintiffs asserted that by contributing to global warming, the defendants’ carbon-dioxide emissions created a substantial and unreasonable interference with public rights, in violation of the federal common law of interstate nuisance or state tort law. The States and New York City alleged that public lands, infrastructure, and health were at risk from climate change. The trusts urged that climate change would destroy habitats for animals and rare species on land they owned and conserved. All plaintiffs sought injunctive relief requiring each defendant to cap its carbon dioxide emissions and then reduce them by a specified percentage each year for at least a decade. The District Court dismissed both suits as presenting non-justiciable political questions. The Second Circuit reversed. On threshold questions, the Court of Appeals held that the suits were not barred by the political question doctrine and that the plaintiffs had adequately alleged Article III standing. Turning to the merits, the Second Circuit held that all plaintiffs had stated a claim under the federal common law of nuisance and that the Clean Air Act did not displace federal common law. Responding to the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency undertook greenhouse gas regulation. In December 2009, the Agency concluded that greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare. EPA issued a joint final rule regulating emissions from light-duty vehicles and initiated a joint rulemaking covering medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. EPA also began phasing in requirements that new or modified major greenhouse gas emitting facilities use the best available control technology and commenced a rulemaking under section 111 of the Act to set limits on greenhouse gas emissions from new, modified, and existing fossil-fuel fired powerplants. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in 2010. Four Members of the Court would hold that at least some plaintiffs have Article III standing under Massachusetts v. EPA, while four Members would hold that none of the plaintiffs have Article III standing. The Court therefore affirmed, by an equally divided Court, the Second Circuit’s exercise of jurisdiction and proceeded to the merits.

On April 5, 1983, David A. Boyle, a United States Marine helicopter copilot, was killed when the CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter he was flying crashed into the ocean off the coast of Virginia Beach, Virginia, during a training exercise. Boyle and one other crew member were trapped inside the sinking helicopter and drowned, while three others escaped. His father, the petitioner, brought a diversity action against the helicopter's manufacturer, respondent United Technologies Corporation (Sikorsky Division), in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The petitioner alleged under Virginia tort law that the manufacturer had defectively designed the copilot's emergency escape system because the hatch opened outward rather than inward and its release mechanism was obstructed. The petitioner also alleged that the manufacturer had negligently failed to warn the Navy of dangers in the escape hatch and system. The jury returned a general verdict in the petitioner's favor and awarded $725,000. The District Court denied the manufacturer's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed and remanded with directions to enter judgment for the manufacturer. It held that the state-law tort action was barred by the government contractor defense it had recognized in McKay v. Rockwell International Corp., under which a contractor is not liable for design defects if the United States approved reasonably precise specifications, the equipment conformed to those specifications, and the supplier warned the United States about dangers known to the supplier but not to the United States. The court concluded that the evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to establish a violation of the third condition. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the propriety of the government contractor defense and to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals. The case reached the Court after the Fourth Circuit's 1986 decision in 792 F.2d 413, following the 1983 crash and the subsequent district court trial.

In 1985, DEA agent Enrique Camarena-Salazar was captured on assignment in Mexico, taken to a house in Guadalajara, tortured over the course of a two-day interrogation, and murdered. Based in part on eyewitness testimony, DEA officials in the United States came to believe that respondent Humberto Alvarez-Machain, a Mexican physician, was present at the house and acted to prolong the agent's life, thereby extending the interrogation and torture. In 1990, a federal grand jury in the Central District of California indicted Alvarez for the torture and murder of Camarena-Salazar, and the district court issued a warrant for his arrest. The DEA asked the Mexican government for help in getting Alvarez into the United States, but when requests and negotiations proved fruitless, the DEA approved a plan to hire Mexican nationals to seize Alvarez and bring him to the United States for trial. Petitioner Jose Francisco Sosa participated in the group that abducted Alvarez from his house, held him overnight in a motel, and brought him by private plane to El Paso, Texas, where he was arrested by federal officers. Once in American custody, Alvarez moved to dismiss the indictment on the ground that his seizure was outrageous governmental conduct and violated the extradition treaty between the United States and Mexico. The district court agreed, the Ninth Circuit affirmed, and the Supreme Court reversed, holding that the fact of Alvarez's forcible seizure did not affect the jurisdiction of a federal court. The case was tried in 1992 and ended at the close of the government's case when the district court granted Alvarez's motion for a judgment of acquittal. In 1993, after returning to Mexico, Alvarez began the civil action at issue here. He sued Sosa, Mexican citizen and DEA operative Antonio Garate-Bustamante, five unnamed Mexican civilians, the United States, and four DEA agents. Alvarez sought damages from the United States under the FTCA alleging false arrest and from Sosa under the ATS for a violation of the law of nations. The district court granted the government's motion to dismiss the FTCA claim but awarded summary judgment and $25,000 in damages to Alvarez on the ATS claim. A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed the ATS judgment but reversed the dismissal of the FTCA claim. A divided en banc court reached the same conclusion. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in the companion cases to clarify the scope of both the FTCA and the ATS.