Case Citator › Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad Co. v. Forst

Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad Co. v. Forst

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Criticized by some courts
Court
Fourth Circuit
Citation
4 F.3d 244
Decided
Confirmed treatments
1
Flagged citations read
77 of 77
Citing cases (total)
77
Treatment dates
1999
Criticized by some courts
At least one reviewed court has criticized this case’s reasoning. No reviewed court has overruled it. All 77 flagged citations to Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad Co. v. Forst have been read. One confirmed criticism is listed below.
More on how this was screened

The Tenth Circuit disagreed with Forst's statement that the distinction between Colorado River deferral and abstention had been lost. Later courts continued to apply Forst's rule that an affirmative defense supports dismissal only when the necessary facts appear on the face of the complaint.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

77 later cases cite Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad Co. v. Forst; 77 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

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Treatments

Criticized

  • The Tenth Circuit disagreed with Forst's view that the distinction between Colorado River deferral and abstention had been lost.

    Rienhardt v. Kelly · Tenth Circuit · filed

    Thus, while Colorado River ’s judicial economy goals allow a federal court to avoid the “virtually unflagging obligation . . . to exercise the jurisdiction given [it],” id. at 818, the appropriate circumstances for deferral under the Colorado River Doctrine are “considerably more limited than the circumstances appropriate for abstention” and must be “exceptional.” Id. at 817-18; but see Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac R.R. v. Forst , 4 F.3d 244, 253 n.20 (4th Cir. 1993) (“Although the Supreme Court made clear that the Colorado River Doctrine was technically not a form of abstention, the distinction has been lost, and we see no reason to revive it.”) (citation omitted);
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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