White v. Edgar’s Empirical Analysis
1974
Citation profile
10 federal appellate · 6 district · 10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 32 later decisions — most recently February 2022 · most notably L.L. Bean, Inc. v. Drake Publishers, Inc. (1987), Pue v. Sillas (1980)
10 federal appellate · 6 district · 10 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 2281 · 42 U.S.C. § 1973A (§ 3 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965)
Relies on Erie Co v. Tompkins · United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs · Younger v. Harris · Railroad Commission v. Pullman Co. · Procunier v. Martinez
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 32 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[Ajpart from a most fundamental principle of “our federalism” — that the state court of last resort is alone the supreme arbiter of the substantive content of the law of the State — a concern to promote federal-state comity would counsel that, wherever reasonably possible, the state court of last resort should be given opportunity to decide state law issues on which there are no state precedents which are controlling or clearly indicative of the development course of the state law. Such approach would (1) tend to avoid the uncertainty and inconsistency in the exposition of state law caused when federal courts render decisions of State law which have an interim effectiveness until the issues are finally settled by the state court of last resort; and (2) minimize the potential for state-federal tensions arising from actual, or fancied, federal Court efforts to influence the development of State law. Since certification is an instrumentality which achieves these objectives while simultaneously avoiding the disadvantages produced by federal abstention (as a practice calculated to attain similar goals), in the situation in which a decision of a question of State law is necessary to a decision of the federal merits of a cause pending in the federal Court, it is, and will continue; a strong policy of this Court [the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine] ... to implement the certification process- White v. Edgar, 320 A.2d 668, 675-76 (Me.1974) (footnotes ommit-ted).”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“When it shall appear to the Supreme Court of the United States, or to any court of appeals or district court of the United States, that there are involved in any proceeding before it one or more questions of law of this State, which may be determinative of the cause, and there are no clear controlling precedents in the decisions of the Supreme Judicial Court, such federal court may certify any such questions of law of this State to the Supreme Judicial Court for instructions concerning such questions of state law, which certificate the Supreme Judicial Court sitting as a law court may, by written opinion, answer.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[i]n the situation in which a decision of a question of State law is necessary to a decision of the federal merits of a cause pending in the federal Court, it is, and will continue, a strong policy of this Court, as conducive to a sound federalism and the promotion of harmonious relations between federal and State Courts, to implement the certification process afforded by 4 M.R.S.A. § 57 in the fullest scope consistent with this Court’s proper functioning.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.