Cite as: 518 U. S. 137 (1996)
Per Curiam
blatant federal-court nullification of state law. The dissent argues that "[t]he doctrine of judicial restraint" weighs against review, post, at 146, but it is an odd notion of judicial restraint that would compel us to cast a blind eye on over-reaching by lower federal courts. The fact observed by the dissent, that the "underlying substantive issue in this case" is a controversial one, generating "a kind of 'hydraulic pressure' that motivates ad hoc decisionmaking," ibid., provides a greater, not a lesser, justification for reversing state-law determinations that seem plainly wrong. In our view, these considerations combine to make this an "extraordinary cas[e]" worth our effort of summary review, post, at 147.
Finally, the dissent's appeal to the supposed greater expertise of courts of appeals regarding state law is particularly weak (if not indeed counterindicative) where a Court of Appeals panel consisting of judges from Oklahoma, Colorado, and Kansas has reversed the District Court of Utah on a point of Utah law. If, as we have said, the courts of appeals owe no deference to district court adjudications of state law, see Salve Regina College v. Russell, 499 U. S. 225, 239-240 (1991), surely there is no basis for regarding panels of circuit judges as "better qualified" than we to pass on such questions, see post, at 146. Our general presumption that courts of appeals correctly decide questions of state law reflects a judgment as to the utility of reviewing them in most cases, see Salve Regina College, supra, at 235, n. 3, not a belief that the courts of appeals have some natural advantage in this domain, cf. Brockett v. Spokane Arcades, Inc., 472 U. S. 491, 500 (1985) ("[W]e surely have the authority to differ with the lower federal courts as to the meaning of a state statute"); Cole v. Richardson, 405 U. S. 676, 683-685 (1972). That general presumption is obviously inapplicable where the court of appeals' state-law ruling is plainly wrong, a conclusion that the dissent does not even contest in this case.
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