Railroad Comm'n of Tex. v. Pullman Co.

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that federal courts should ordinarily abstain where the resolution of a federal constitutional issue may be rendered irrelevant by the determination of a predicate state-law question
• holding that federal courts should abstain from deciding constitutional questions relating to state laws when there is a possibility that state courts may interpret the laws in a way that alters or eliminates the federal question
• explaining that, where appropriate, a federal court may abstain from deciding a case to permit a state court the opportunity to resolve a state law question
• finding courts should abstain from ruling on constitutional questions until questions of state law are resolved in state courts
• abstaining from cases in which the resolution of a federal constitutional question might be obviated if the state courts were given the opportunity to interpret ambiguous state law
• discussing the possible mootness of federal constitutional issues in light of state court determination of pertinent state law

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).