Helpful Hints
- (1) You can search the entire content of Dean’s by phrase or by individual words. Just type your keywords into the search box and then pull down the search icon on the right and choose the option you need: search by word or by phrase or reset the content.
- (2) Double click on a word in the content of a definition, and if the word is listed as a keyword in Dean’s, it will look that word up.
- (3) You can use the search function to help jump the scrolling function. Simply type the first 2-3 letters into the search box then hit enter on your keyboard and the scroll will go to those Keywords that begin with those letters and allow you to scroll from there.
There is, of course, 'no federal general common law.' Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 78 (1938). Nevertheless, the Court has recognized the need and authority in some limited areas to formulate what has come to be known as 'federal common law.' See United States v. Standard Oil Co., 332 U.S. 301, 308 (1947). These instances are 'few and restricted,' Wheeldin v. Wheeler, 373 U.S. 647, 651 (1963), and fall into essentially two categories: those in which a federal rule of decision is 'necessary to protect uniquely federal interests,' Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino, 376 U.S. 398, 426 (1964), and those in which Congress has given the courts the power to develop substantive law, Wheeldin v. Wheeler, supra, at 652.
The vesting of jurisdiction in the federal courts does not in and of itself give rise to authority to formulate federal common law, United States v. Little Lake Misere Land Co., 412 U.S. 580, 591 (1973), nor does the existence of congressional authority under Art. I mean that federal courts are free to develop a common law to govern those areas until Congress acts. Rather, absent some congressional authorization to ...
