368
Opinion of the Court
471 U. S., at 743 (emphasis, citations, and internal quotation marks omitted); see also Pilot Life, 481 U. S., at 48-49.
A
The Ninth Circuit concluded that California's notice-prejudice rule "regulates insurance" as a matter of common sense. See Cisneros, 134 F. 3d, at 945. We do not normally disturb an appeals court's judgment on an issue so heavily dependent on analysis of state law, see Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U. S. 160, 181-182 (1976), and we lack cause to do so here. The California notice-prejudice rule controls the terms of the insurance relationship by "requiring the insurer to prove prejudice before enforcing proof-of-claim requirements." Cisneros, 134 F. 3d, at 945. As the Ninth Circuit observed, the rule, by its very terms, "is directed specifically at the insurance industry and is applicable only to insurance contracts." Ibid.; see Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 12 ("[O]ur survey of California law reveals no cases where the state courts apply the notice-prejudice rule as such outside the insurance area. Nor is this surprising, given that the rule is stated in terms of prejudice to an 'insurer' resulting from untimeliness of notice."). The rule thus appears to satisfy the common-sense view as a regulation that homes in on the insurance industry and does "not just have an impact on [that] industry." Pilot Life, 481 U. S., at 50.
UNUM and its amici urge in opposition to the Ninth Circuit's common-sense conclusion that the notice-prejudice rule is merely an industry-specific application of the general principle that "disproportionate forfeiture should be avoided in the enforcement of contracts." See Brief for American Council of Life Insurance et al. as Amici Curiae 13; Brief for Association of California Life and Health Insurance Companies as Amicus Curiae 5 ("[N]otice-prejudice is merely a branch of the broad doctrine of harmless error."). Given the tenet from which the notice-prejudice rule springs, UNUM
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