4.9 Federal Courts Interpreting Virginia Cases

• Library: A Guide to Legal Research in Virginia (Virginia CLE) (2017 Ed.)

4.9 FEDERAL COURTS INTERPRETING VIRGINIA CASES

4.901 In General. Questions of Virginia law may also arise in cases decided by federal trial and appellate courts. In these instances, the federal court must apply Virginia law and, where that law is unclear, try to predict how a Virginia court would decide the issue. These predictions, while binding on the parties to the federal case, are not binding precedent within the state court system. Nevertheless, a soundly reasoned federal decision on an unsettled issue of Virginia law may be highly persuasive to a state judge facing the same issue.

4.902 Sources of Federal Decisions. The principal sources of these federal decisions are the United States District Courts and the Bankruptcy Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which hears appeals from the federal trial courts in Virginia. Decisions of these federal courts are published by West (Thomson Reuters) in the Federal Reporter...