court to a Federal court; and though the point of law on which the case turns may be one which has arisen and been decided in the Supreme court of the Union, a State judge, in a State case, is not bound to regard that decision. It has only a moral weight, such as might be given to the decision of an English court, and where the question is one of State law, whether common law or statute law, in which State courts have decided one way and a Federal court the other way, the State judge ought to follow his own courts. So far does this go, that a Federal court in administering State law, ought to reverse its own previous decision rather than depart from the view which the highest State court has taken.[1] All this seems extremely complex. I can only say that it is less troublesome in practice than could have been expected, because American lawyers are accustomed to the intricacies of their system.
When a plaintiff has the choice of proceeding in a State court or in a Federal court, he is sometimes, especially if he has a strong case, inclined to select the latter, because the Federal judges are more independent than those of most of the States, and less likely to be influenced by any bias. So, too, if he thinks that local prejudice may tell against him, he will prefer a Federal court, because the jurors are summoned from a wider area, and because the judges are accustomed to exert a larger authority in guiding and controlling the jury. But it is usually more convenient to sue in a State court, seeing that there is such a court in every county, whereas Federal courts are comparatively few; in many States there is but one.[2]
The Federal authority, be it executive or judicial, acts upon the citizens of a State directly by means of its own officers, who are quite distinct from and independent of the State officials. Federal indirect taxes, for instance, are levied all along the coast and over the country by Federal custom-house collectors and excisemen, acting under the orders of the treasury
- ↑ This is especially the rule in cases involving the title to land. But though the theory is as stated in the text, the Federal courts not unfrequently (especially in commercial cases), act upon their own view of the State law, and have sometimes been accused of going so far as to create a sort of Federal common law.
- ↑ Of course a plaintiff who thinks local prejudice will befriend him will choose the State court, but the defendant may have the cause removed to a Federal court if he be a citizen of another State or an alien, or if the question at issue is such as to give Federal jurisdiction.
