explaining general rule that state courts may exercise jurisdiction over federal causes of action unless there is a “provision by Congress to the contrary or disabling incompatibility between the federal claim and state-court adjudication”
How later courts described this case
- explaining general rule that state courts may exercise jurisdiction over federal causes of action unless there is a “provision by Congress to the contrary or disabling incompatibility between the federal claim and state-court adjudication”
- recognizing a general presumption of concurrent jurisdiction by state courts over federal claims, which is rebuttable “by an explicit statutory directive, by unmistakable implication from legislative history, or by a clear incompatibility between state-court jurisdiction and federal interests”
- explaining that federal courts will not “oust a state court from concurrent jurisdiction” absent clear -24- statutory language indicating Congress intended to create exclusive federal jurisdiction
- suggesting that considerations of uniformity and judicial economy may support finding that the state courts’ exercise of jurisdiction over a cause of ac tion that is “peculiarly federal” is “incompatible’’ with federal interests
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Justice Blackmun,
with whom Justice Brennan and Justice Marshall join, concurring in part and concurring in the result.
I join the Court’s opinion as to Parts I and II, and I concur in the decision to remand this case for further proceedings as *489 to the applicability of the rule adopted in Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Liepelt, 444 U. S. 490 (1980). I write separately because I have reservations about the Court’s expressed intention to apply the Liepelt rule expansively, a ruling I consider unwise and unnecessary to this case in its present posture.
As the Court makes clear, ante, at 488, the Texas Court of Civil Appeals on remand must determine, first, what Louisiana law requires as to this form of instruction, and, second, whether that state rule is “inconsistent” with OCSLA or “other Federal laws.” 43 U. S. C. § 1333 (a)(2). The Court acknowledges, and I agree, that the choice-of-law provision contained in OCSLA creates “[d]oubt,” ante, at 487, as to whether Congress intended state law or' federal law to govern the grant of this instruction. As I understand OCSLA, the purpose of incorporating state law was to permit actions arising on these federal lands to be determined by rules essentially the same as those applicable to actions arising on the bordering state lands. Congress apparently intended to provide a kind of local uniformity of result, regardless of whether the action arose on shelf lands or on neighboring state lands. I would read the statute, thus, to encourage use of state law, and I would permit the state court to weigh, as an initial matter and only if the Louisiana rule differs from the Liepelt rule, whether Congress’ desire for local uniformity outweighs any perceived need, as a matter of federal common law, for the instruction. I do not find it self-evident that Liepelt created a general “federal common-law rule” that so greatly “furthers strong federal policies of fairness and efficiency in litigation of federal claims,” ante, at 486, 487, as to require its application in cases governed by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. In my view, this question was not settled in Liepelt , and it remains open for future adjudication.