Sibbach v. Wilson

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Sibbach v. Wilson
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 17, 1940 Decided January 13, 1941
Full case name: Sibbach v. Wilson & Company, Incorporated Citations: 312 U.S. 1; 61 S. Ct. 422; 85 L. Ed. 479; 1941 U.S. LEXIS 1032 Prior history: Cert. to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
Holding
In a diverse jurisdiction case, important and substantial procedures are considered "Procedural" not "Substantive" and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure apply.
Court membership
Chief Justice: Charles Evans Hughes Associate Justices: James Clark McReynolds, Harlan Fiske Stone, Owen Josephus Roberts, Hugo Black, Stanley Forman Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy
Case opinions
Majority by: Roberts Joined by: Hughes, McReynolds, Stone, Reed Dissent by: Frankfurter Joined by: Black, Douglas, Murphy

Sibbach v. Wilson, 312 U.S. 1 (1941), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court in which the court held that important and substantial procedures are not substantive, rather they are still considered procedural, and federal law applies.

This was a pre-Erie (Erie Railroad v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938)) decision, and thus the decision whether to apply the law of the state of jurisdiction or uniform federal rules depended on whether the rule in question was procedural or substantive in nature.