Cite as: 518 U. S. 415 (1996)
Opinion of the Court
337 U. S., at 533-534, so Erie precludes a recovery in federal court significantly larger than the recovery that would have been tolerated in state court.
B
CPLR § 5501(c), as earlier noted, see supra, at 425, 426, is phrased as a direction to the New York Appellate Division. Acting essentially as a surrogate for a New York appellate forum, the Court of Appeals reviewed Gasperini's award to determine if it "deviate[d] materially" from damage awards the Appellate Division permitted in similar circumstances. The Court of Appeals performed this task without benefit of an opinion from the District Court, which had denied "without comment" the Center's Rule 59 motion. 66 F. 3d, at 428. Concentrating on the authority § 5501(c) gives to the Appellate Division, Gasperini urges that the provision shifts fact-finding responsibility from the jury and the trial judge to the appellate court. Assigning such responsibility to an appellate court, he maintains, is incompatible with the Seventh Amendment's Reexamination Clause, and therefore, Gasperini concludes, § 5501(c) cannot be given effect in federal court. Brief for Petitioner 19-20. Although we reach a different conclusion than Gasperini, we agree that the Second Circuit did not attend to "[a]n essential characteristic of [the federal court] system," Byrd v. Blue Ridge Rural Elec. Cooperative, Inc., 356 U. S. 525, 537 (1958), when it used § 5501(c) as "the standard for [federal] appellate review," Consorti, 72 F. 3d, at 1013; see also 66 F. 3d, at 430.
That "essential characteristic" was described in Byrd, a diversity suit for negligence in which a pivotal issue of fact would have been tried by a judge were the case in state court. The Byrd Court held that, despite the state practice,13 the plaintiff was entitled to a jury trial in federal court.
13 The defendant argued in Byrd that although the personal injury plaintiff was employed by an independent contractor, the work plaintiff was engaged to perform was the same as work done by defendant's own em-
431
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