The supreme court of this state may answer a question of law certified to it by a court of the United States or by an appellate court of another state, a tribe, Canada, a Canadian province or territory, Mexico or a Mexican state if the answer may be determinative of an issue in pending litigation in the certifying court and there is no controlling appellate decision, constitutional provision or statute of this state.
§ 39-7-4 NMSA 1978
Power to answer
Known as the Uniform Certification of Questions of Law Act
The act spans §§ 39–39 (13 sections).
Applied in 7 court decisions — leading case 472 F. Supp. 2d 1272 - Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance v. Jameson (2006)
Most recently applied in Patterson v. Nine Energy Serv., LLC (November 2018)
Laws 1997, ch. 8, § 4.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: NMOneSource (New Mexico Compilation Commission). Reproduced from public-domain New Mexico statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.