226
Opinion of the Court
(Federal Government contractors and civil liability of federal officials); United States v. Standard Oil Co. of Cal., 332 U. S. 301, 305 (1947) (relationship between Federal Government and members of its Armed Forces); Howard v. Lyons, 360 U. S. 593, 597 (1959) ( liability of federal officers in the course of official duty); Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino, 376 U. S. 398, 425 (1964) (relationships with other countries). See also Texas Industries, Inc. v. Radcliff Materials, Inc., 451 U. S. 630, 641 (1981) ("[A]bsent some congressional authorization to formulate substantive rules of decision, federal common law exists only in such narrow areas as those concerned with the rights and obligations of the United States, interstate and international disputes implicating the conflicting rights of States or our relations with foreign nations, and admiralty cases"). Indeed, the interests in many of the cases where this Court has declined to recognize federal common law appear at least as strong as, if not stronger than, those present here. E. g., Wallis v. Pan American Petroleum Corp., 384 U. S. 63 (1966) (applying state law to claims for land owned and leased by the Federal Government); Kim-bell Foods, 440 U. S., at 726, 732-738 (applying state law to priority of liens under federal lending programs).
We conclude that the federal common-law standards enunciated in cases such as Briggs did not survive this Court's later decision in Erie v. Tompkins. There is no federal common law that would create a general standard of care applicable to this case.
III
We now turn to a further question: Does federal statutory law (namely, the federal "gross negligence" statute) supplant any state-law standard of care? The relevant parts of that statute read as follows:
"A director or officer of an insured depository institution may be held personally liable for monetary damages in any civil action by, on behalf of, or at the request or
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