Railroad Commission v. Pullman Co.
1941 United States Supreme Court case / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Railroad Commission v. Pullman Co., 312 U.S. 496 (1941), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court determined that it was appropriate for United States federal courts to abstain from hearing a case in order to allow state courts to decide substantial Constitutional issues that touch upon sensitive areas of state social policy.[1]
Railroad Commission v. Pullman Co. | |
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Argued February 4, 1941 Decided March 3, 1941 | |
Full case name | Railroad Commission of Texas, et al. v. Pullman Company, et al. |
Citations | 312 U.S. 496 (more) 61 S. Ct. 643; 85 L. Ed. 971; 1941 U.S. LEXIS 1102 |
Case history | |
Prior | Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Texas |
Court membership | |
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Case opinion | |
Majority | Frankfurter, joined by Hughes, McReynolds, Stone, Black, Reed, Douglas, Murphy |
Roberts took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. |
This form of abstention allows state courts to correct things like equal protection violations for themselves, thus avoiding the embarrassment of having state policy corrected by the federal courts. Under Pullman abstention, the federal court retains jurisdiction to hear the case if the state court's resolution is still constitutionally suspect.