180
Scalia, J., dissenting
States v. Schooner Peggy, 1 Cranch 103, 110 (1801) ("If, subsequent to the judgment [entered by a lower court], and before the decision of the appellate court, a law intervenes and positively changes the rule which governs, the law must be obeyed, or its obligation denied."). Later cases took the same deferential approach to state courts when the intervening event consisted of one of our own opinions. See, e. g., State Tax Comm'n v. Van Cott, 306 U. S. 511 (1939). By 1945, we could state that it was "[a] customary procedure" for the Court "to vacate the judgment of [a] state court where there has been a supervening event since its rendition which alters the basis upon which the judgment rests, and to remand the case so that the court from which it came might reconsider the question in light of the changed circumstances." State Farm Mut. Automobile Ins. Co. v. Duel, 324 U. S. 154, 161 (1945). Similarly, where a federal court of appeals' decision on a point of state law had been cast in doubt by an intervening state supreme court decision, it became our practice to vacate and remand so that the question could be decided by judges "familiar with the intricacies and trends of local law and practice." Huddleston v. Dwyer, 322 U. S. 232, 237 (1944).
The "intervening event" branch of our no-fault V&R practice has been extended to the seemingly analogous situation (though not one implicating the special needs of federalism) in which an intervening event (ordinarily a postjudgment decision of this Court) has cast doubt on the judgment rendered by a lower federal court or a state court concerning a federal question. See, e. g., Amer v. Superior Court of Cal., County of Los Angeles, 334 U. S. 813 (1948); Goldbaum v. United States, 348 U. S. 905 (1955); Henry v. City of Rock Hill, 376 U. S. 776 (1964). This is undoubtedly the largest category of "GVRs" that now exists. See, e. g., Exxon Corp. v. Youell, post, p. 801; Kapoor v. United States, post, p. 801; Edmond v. United States, post, p. 802; Pacesetter Constr. Co. v. Carpenters 46 Northern Cal. Ctys. Conference Bd., post, p. 802; Doctor's Associates, Inc. v. Casarotto, 515 U. S. 1129
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