Felix Frankfurter

“ So here, though no constitutional issue is present, regard for the respective orbits of State and federal tribunals is the best of reasons, as a matter of judicial administration, for requiring a definitive adjudication by the New York courts rather than proceeding on the basis of our own tentative guess as to the meaning of the New York statutes. That federal issues may remain is no justification for refusing to submit to the New York courts a separable issue of New York law. ”

“ In each of these cases the discretion of a federal court of equity could practicably be exercised in a way which retained ultimate jurisdiction of the case while permitting adjudication of the State question in the State courts. In each there were available State procedures capable of providing a prompt decision, and the litigation had not already consumed such an unconscionable amount of time as to make recourse to them inexpedient. ”

“ In this situation a federal court of equity is asked to decide an issue by making a tentative answer which may be displaced tomorrow by a state adjudication. * * * The reign of law is hardly promoted if an unnecessary ruling of a federal court is thus supplanted by a controlling decision of a state court. ”