[555] 311 U.S. 223 (1940).
[556] 311 U.S. 169 (1940). This decision has been thoroughly criticized by Arthur L. Corbin in The Laws of the Several States, 50 Yale L.J. 762 (1941). See also Mitchell Wendell, Relations Between Federal and State Courts (New York, 1949), 209-223. This book contains a good account of the operation of the Tyson and Tompkins rules, pp. 113-247.
[557] 333 U.S. 153 (1948). For other cases applying the rule that decisions of State intermediate courts are binding unless there is convincing evidence that the State law is otherwise, see Six Companies of California v. Highway Dist., 311 U.S. 180 (1940); Stoner v. New York Life Ins. Co., 311 U.S. 464 (1940).
[558] Vandenbark v. Owens-Illinois Co., 311 U.S. 538 (1941).
[559] 28 U.S.C.A. § 1652; 62 Stat. 944 (1948). In 1938, the year of the Tompkins decision, the Conformity Act of 1872 (17 Stat. 196 § 5) was superseded; and from that time until the enactment of 62 Stat. 944, the federal courts were guided in diversity cases by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure formulated by the Supreme Court by virtue of the authority delegated it, in 1934, by 48 Stat. 1064.
[560] Ruhlin v. New York Life Ins. Co., 304 U.S. 202 (1938).
[561] 326 U.S. 99 (1945).
[562] Ibid. 108-109.
[563] Ibid. 109. Justice Rutledge wrote a dissent in which Justice Murphy concurred. Justice Rutledge objected to the rigid application of a statute of limitations to suits in equity and to the implication that Congress could not authorize federal courts to administer equitable relief in accordance with the substantive rights of the parties, notwithstanding State statutes of limitations barring such suits in State courts. In his view, if any change were to be made, it was for Congress and not the Court to make it. In line with this ruling see Ragan v. Merchants Transfer & W. Co., 337 U.S. 530 (1949); also Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 555 (1949).
[564] 2 Story, Commentaries, 467 § 1696 (2d. ed., 1851).