28 USC § 1652 - State laws as rules of decision | LII / Legal Information Institute

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Current through Pub. L. 112-90. (See Public Laws for the current Congress.)

The laws of the several states, except where the Constitution or treaties of the United States or Acts of Congress otherwise require or provide, shall be regarded as rules of decision in civil actions in the courts of the United States, in cases where they apply.

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The laws of the several states, except where the Constitution or treaties of the United States or Acts of Congress otherwise require or provide, shall be regarded as rules of decision in civil actions in the courts of the United States, in cases where they apply.

Source

(June 25, 1948, ch. 646, 62 Stat. 944.)

Historical Revision Notes

Based on title 28, U.S.C., 1940 ed., § 725 (R.S. § 721).

“Civil actions” was substituted for “trials at common law” to clarify the meaning of the Rules of Decision Act in the light of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Such Act has been held to apply to suits in equity.

Changes were made in phraseology.

The table below lists the classification updates, since Jan. 7, 2011, for this section. Updates to a broader range of sections may be found at the update page for containing chapter, title, etc.

The most recent Classification Table update that we have noticed was Friday, April 6, 2012

An empty table indicates that we see no relevant changes listed in the classification tables. If you suspect that our system may be missing something, please double-check with the Office of the Law Revision Counsel.

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The Session Year indicates which session of Congress was responsible for the changes classified. The Congress number forms the first part of the Public Law number; each Congress has two sessions.

Abbreviations used in the Description of Change column:

An empty field implies a standard amendment.
"new" means a new section or new note, or all new text of an existing section or note.
"nt" means note.
"nt [tbl]" means note [table].
"prec" means preceding.
"fr" means a transfer from another section.
"to" means a transfer to another section.
"omitted" means the section is omitted.
"repealed" means the section is repealed.
"nt ed change" and "ed change" - See the Editorial Classification Change Table [pdf].

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General Reference

Refer to the LRC (Law Revision Council) for explanations about the US Code from the folks who put it all together.

You can look for information about what it is and is not, which titles are positive law, the schedule of Supplements, etc. Under download you can find the source data we use here (GPO locator files), as well as, PDF files that look just like the paper books (these may be rather large).

Refer to the Thomas site for changes that have not yet made it into the classification tables.

28 USC	Description of Change	Session Year	Public Law	Statutes at Large

28 USC § 1652 - State laws as rules of decision

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