Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/658

650 FEDERAL REPORTER. �in Leffinwell v. IVarren, 2 Bl. 603, the supreme court says: "The construction given to a statute of a state bythe highest judicial tribunal of such state is regarded as a part of the statute, and is as binding upon the courts of the United States as the text. If the highest tribunal of a state adopt new views as to the proper construction of such a statute, and reverse its former decisions, this court will follow the latest settled adjudications." �In Shelby v. Gay, 11 Wheat, 367, that court says : "Nor is it questionable that a fixed and received construction of their respective statute laws in their own courts makes, in fact, a part of the statute law of the country, however we may doubt the propriety of that construction. It is obvions that this admission may, at times, involve us in seeming inconsisten- cies, as where states have adopted the same statutes and their courts differ in their construction; yet that course is necessarily indicated by the duty imposed on us to admin- ister as between certain individuals the laws of the respective states according to the best lights we possess of what those laws are." �In Green v. Neal's Lessees, 6 Pet. 299, the same court says : "The inquiry is, what is the settled law of the state at the time the decision is made ? This constitutes the rule of prop- erty within the state, by which the rights of litigant parties must be determined. As the federal tribunals profess to be governed by this rule they can never act inconsistently by enforcing it. If they change their decision it is because the rule on which that decision was founded has been changed." This rule seems to admit of no exception unless where, in case of a change of a judicial construction by the state court, a contract legal according to the decision of the highest court of the state, when it was made, will be invalidated by foUowing the later decision. In such a case, as respects such a contract, such a change in the law is held to be a violation of the obligation of a contract by the state, and is within the inhibition of the constitution of the United States. Gelpke v. City of Duhuque, 1 Wall. 206. �Subject to this exception, which has no application to the ��� �