“[E]ven where there was conformity, it was to be ‘as near as may be,’ and this was understood by the Court to make the Conformity Act ‘to some extent only directory and advisory’ and to permit the federal judge to disregard a state practice that would, in his view, ‘unwisely encumber the administration of the law, or tend to defeat the ends of justice.’ With all these exceptions to conformity, and with the judge left somewhat at large to decide when he would conform, it is hardly surprising that the result was, in the view of a distinguished commentator, ‘a mixture of conflicting decisions, which have served to cloud the whole subject in hideous confusion and shifting certainty.’ ” Charles Alan Wright, The Law of Federal Courts § 61, at 425–26 (5th ed. 1994) (quoting Indianapolis & St. Louis Ry. Co. v. Horst, 93 U.S. 291, 300–01 (1876)).
conformity act
Conformity Act. Hist. An 1872 federal statute providing that the practice and procedure in federal district courts (other than in equity and admiralty matters) must conform to the practice and procedure used by the state courts for like cases. • The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (effective in 1938) superseded the Conformity Act.
