what does the constitution say about inferior courts
Article Three of the United States Constitution
A significant omission is that although Clause 1 provides that federal judicial power shall extend to `` the laws of the United States , '' it does not also provide that it shall extend to the laws of the several or individual states . In turn , the Judiciary Act of 1789 and subsequent acts never granted the U.S. Supreme Court the power to review decisions of state supreme courts on pure issues of state law . It is this silence which tacitly made state supreme courts the final expositors of the common law in their respective states . They were free to diverge from English precedents and from each other on the vast majority of legal issues which had never been made part of federal law by the Constitution , and the U.S. Supreme Court could do nothing about that , as it would ultimately concede in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins ( 1938 ) . By way of contrast , other English - speaking federations like Australia and Canada never adopted the Erie doctrine . That is , their highest courts have always possessed plenary power to impose a uniform nationwide common law upon all lower courts and never adopted the strong American distinction between federal and state common law .
A significant omission is that although Clause 1 provides that federal judicial power shall extend to `` the laws of the United States , '' it does not also provide that it shall extend to the laws of the several or individual states . In turn , the Judiciary Act of 1789 and subsequent acts never granted the U.S. Supreme Court the power to review decisions of state supreme courts on pure issues of state law . It is this silence which tacitly made state supreme courts the final expositors of the common law in their respective states . They were free to diverge from English precedents and from each other on the vast majority of legal issues which had never been made part of federal law by the Constitution , and the U.S. Supreme Court could do nothing about that , as it would ultimately concede in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins ( 1938 ) . By way of contrast , other English - speaking federations like Australia and Canada never adopted the Erie doctrine . That is , their highest courts have always possessed plenary power to impose a uniform nationwide common law upon all lower courts and never adopted the strong American distinction between federal and state common law .