916
Opinion of the Court
asserting a defense provided by federal law, petitioners submit that the Idaho courts must protect their right to avoid the burdens of trial by allowing the same interlocutory appeal that would be available in a federal court. They support this submission with two different arguments: First, that when the Idaho courts construe their own rules allowing appeals from final judgments, they must accept the federal definition of finality in cases brought under § 1983; and second, that if those rules do not authorize the appeal, they are pre-empted by federal law. We find neither argument persuasive.
III
We can easily dispense with petitioners' first contention that Idaho must follow the federal construction of a "final decision." Even if the Idaho and federal statutes contained identical language—and they do not 4—the interpretation of the Idaho statute by the Idaho Supreme Court would be binding on federal courts. Neither this Court nor any other federal tribunal has any authority to place a construction on a state statute different from the one rendered by the highest court of the State. See, e. g., New York v. Ferber, 458 U. S. 747, 767 (1982); Exxon Corp. v. Department of Revenue of Wis., 447 U. S. 207, 226, n. 9 (1980); Commissioner v. Estate of Bosch, 387 U. S. 456, 465 (1967). This proposition, fundamental to our system of federalism, is applicable to procedural as well as substantive rules. See Wardius v. Oregon, 412 U. S. 470, 477 (1973).
The definition of the term "final decision" that we adopted in Mitchell was an application of the "collateral order" doctrine first recognized in Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan
4 "Final decision" is the operative term of § 1291, whereas "[j]udgments, orders and decrees which are final" is the language of Idaho Appellate Rule 11(a)(1).
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