majority opinion becomes law in supreme court decisions.
majority opinion becomes law in supreme court decisions.
which type of opinion becomes law in supreme court decisions?
majority
in 1989, in brown v. board of education of topeka shawnee county kansas, a federal appeals panel issued a revised opinion saying that the city of topeka had not done enough to desegregate its schools since a 1954 u.s. supreme court decision in brown v. board of education. judges stephanie seymour and monroe mckay overturned, in a 2-to-1 ruling, a 1987 ruling by federal district judge richard rogers that topeka schools were not responsible for lingering segregation because the board of education had not intended to keep the schools segregated. in the majority opinion, judge seymour wrote that judge rogers "erred by limiting the school district's burden merely to showing that it had nondiscriminatory reasons for acting as it did. as 30 years of desegregation law have made clear, the constitution requires more than ceasing to promote segregation." the tenth circuit decision was subsequently vacated by the u.s. supreme court, which remanded the case to reconsider in light of recent supreme court decisions. on remand the tenth circuit reinstated its prior opinion in full, holding that the recent supreme court decisions did not dictate a different outcome. the supreme court declined review so the case returned to the district court, which issued a final order in 1999 dismissing the case.
monroe g. mckay
by 1938, as justice brandeis acknowledged, "the mischievous results of the doctrine had become apparent." the problem with "swift" was that rather than reducing forum shopping, it had only increased it by increasing the opportunities for forum shopping available to litigants. there were two underlying issues behind this. first, as the "erie" opinion noted, nothing in the constitution actually grants jurisdiction to the federal judiciary to conduct plenary review of issues of state common law where no federal issue is present. second, in accordance with that understanding (although this latter point was not noted in the "erie" opinion), section 25 of the judiciary act of 1789 only authorized the supreme court to review those state supreme court decisions that "rejected" federal claims. while congress broadened the scope of supreme court review in 1914 to include state supreme court decisions allowing federal claims, congress never actually authorized the supreme court to conduct plenary review of the merits of state law claims (and no one ever sought a constitutional amendment that would authorize congress to do that). this meant the supreme court could not directly dictate uniform rules of state common law to all state courts or reverse their decisions for failing to apply such rules, which stands in stark contrast to other common law federations like australia and canada whose highest courts do possess such powers. since state courts had no actual obligation to follow the "general law" independently formulated under "swift" by federal courts, state judge-made law continued to diverge instead of converge.
erie railroad co. v. tompkins