Opinion of the Court. 337 U.S. decisive in this case. It is useful only as a statement of the administrative determination as to the effect of litigation without a license. It is our conclusion that the Joint Resolution of May 7, 1940, and the Executive Order of April 10, 1940, put into effect a valid plan for control of the property covered by the regulation that prohibited any change of title to that property by reason of the subsequent appointment of petitioner as permanent receiver. We do not now undertake to say whether every determination of rights concerning blocked property in unlicensed litigation is voidable. We base our determination on the purpose of Congress to prevent shifts in title to blocked assets and the prohibition of the Executive Order against transfers of such a credit as this. The language of the order prohibits more than payment. It prohibits transfers of credit. We do not think the administrative rulings are to the contrary. Second. The petitioner advances the contention, however, that title to AKM's claim against ASCAP had passed to him by his appointment as temporary receiver on June 12, 1941, prior to the freezing or blocking order of June 14, 1941. Therefore, petitioner argues, AKM had nothing that could be frozen by the immobilization order or taken by the vesting order. The precise issue of state law involved, i. e., whether the temporary receiver under § 977-b of the New York Civil Practice Act is vested with title by virtue of his appointment, is one which has not been decided by the New York courts. Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals faced this question and answered it in the negative. In dealing with issues of state law that enter into judgments of federal courts, we are hesitant to overrule decisions by federal courts skilled in the law of particular states unless their conclusions are shown 472 Opinion of the Court. to be unreasonable. Estate of Spiegel v. Commissioner, 335 U. S. 701, 707-708; Helvering v. Stuart, 317 U. S. 154; MacGregor v. State Mutual Co., 315 U. S. 280. We shall examine the problem from that point of view. 21 Having no state case on the precise statute before it, the Court of Appeals turned to cases dealing with temporary receiverships in equity proceedings and under analogous statutes. These cases seem to hold that temporary receivers of neither the equity 20 nor statutory class obtain title, but, on the contrary, merely a right to possession. The courts below found nothing in § 977-b which evidenced an intent that the result under that section should be otherwise. Admittedly there is no express declaration of such an intent. The statutory language is easily susceptible of varying interpretations. See subsections 4, 10, 11, 12 and 19. These sections are not clear as to the title taken by the temporary receiver or the authority granted to him for the holding or handling of claims against debtors. The Court of Appeals concluded, however, that where in subsection 12 the statute said that "any receiver appointed . shall have all the powers and duties . . 20 E. g., Decker v. Gardner, 124 N. Y. 334, 26 N. E. 814; see Keeney v. Home Insurance Co., 71 N. Y. 396, 401. 21 E. g., Mutual Brewing Co. v. N. Y. & C. P. F. Co., 16 App. Div. 149, 45 N. Y. S. 101; Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Sanborn, 34 Misc. 531, 69 N. Y. S. 1009; see N. Y. General Corporation Law §§ 162, 163, 168, and annotations thereto. Petitioner calls our attention to Nealis v. American Tube & Iron Co., 150 N. Y. 42, 45, 44 N. E. 944, 945, a case not cited to the Court of Appeals. This case says that a temporary receiver under a different statute "is vested with title and represents the corporation and its creditors as fully as a permanent receiver after final judgment of dissolution." P. 45. This case, however, involved the right of a temporary receiver to sue and the opinion deals with that problem rather than the distinction between a right to obtain possession and title. See In re Warren E. Smith Co., 31 App. Div. 39, 52 N. Y. S. 877, 884. Opinion of the Court. 337 U.S. possessed by and conferred upon receivers and trustees by the laws of the state of New York," the meaning was "that a temporary receiver under this provision takes the usual powers of other temporary receivers in New York." 169 F. 2d 324, 327. It was pointed out that otherwise the specific and restricted grant of powers to a temporary receiver by subsection 4 would be purposeless. Petitioner contends here for the first time that a vesting of title in the temporary receiver is an essential prerequisite to the exercise of jurisdiction in rem over the assets within the state of a nonresident association which is served by publication. The contention is that an affirmance of the court below on the issue of state law will render proceedings under § 977-b subject to an attack on constitutional grounds under the doctrine of Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714. In our opinion the argument is without merit. Pennoyer v. Neff merely holds that a personal judgment cannot be obtained against a nonresident on service by publication. It recognizes at p. 733 that for an in rem action it is sufficient that the property be within the state, subject to the control of the court, and that there be some form of service which is reasonably calculated to give notice to parties whose interests may be affected by the judgment. Cf. Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U. S. 457, 463. The first requirement can be met in other ways than seizure of title, e. g., by an injunction against transfer of the property, Pennington v. Fourth National Bank, 243 U. S. 269; by an attachment, Herbert v. Bicknell, 233 U. S. 70; or by personal service on the party holding the property within the state, Security Savings Bank v. California, 263 U. S. 282. We have no doubt that where property is in a state and comes under the control of a court, as here by appointment of the temporary receiver, it is fair to permit substituted service. Anderson Nat. Bank v. Luckett, 321 472 Opinion of the Court. U. S. 233, 240, et seq.; see McDonald v. Mabee, 243 U. S. 90. Since the determination of the state law issue concerning the title of the temporary receiver by the courts below is not unreasonable, we accept it as correct for the purposes of this case. A suggestion appears in petitioner's briefs, but not in the questions presented by the petition for certiorari, that the judgments below should be vacated and the case remanded to the District Court to be held until the parties can secure from the courts of New York a decision as to whether the temporary receiver took title to the claim against ASCAP. Waiving the failure to raise the issue by the petition for certiorari,22 we consider the contention in deference to the earnestness with which the point is pressed in the dissent.23 If the state law is that title passed to the temporary receiver on his appointment prior to the freezing order, the Custodian, by the assumption of the opinion, would obtain nothing by his order vesting AKM property. Such a ruling would make unnecessary consideration of any other issue. This suggested procedure has been followed in order to avoid a decision on a federal constitutional issueSpector Motor Co. v. McLaughlin, 323 U. S. 101; Chicago v. Fieldcrest Dairies, 316 U. S. 168; Railroad Comm'n v. Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496; but cf. Public Utilities Comm'n v. United Fuel Gas Co., 317 U. S. 456, 462-63and where the only issue in the case was one of state law, although federal jurisdiction was based on the Bankruptcy Act. Thompson v. Magnolia Petroleum Co., 309 U. S. 478. We have refused in a diversity of citizenship case to allow the difficulty of an issue of state law to deter us 22 Connecticut R. & L. Co. v. Palmer, 305 U. S. 493. Opinion of the Court. 337 U.S. from exercising our jurisdiction when federal determination was subject to equitable discretion and the state issue was the only one in the case. Meredith v. Winter Haven, 320 U. S. 228.24 To refrain from deciding it, we there said, would be to enervate diversity jurisdiction. Where a case involves a nonconstitutional federal issue, however, the necessity for deciding which depends upon the decision on an underlying issue of state law, the practice in federal courts has been, when necessary, to decide both issues. This was the course we followed in Markham v. Allen, 326 U. S. 490, 495-6, a case arising under the Trading with the Enemy Act, where an issue was the construction of a state statute. The state law question in Estate of Spiegel v. Commissioner, supra, was concededly difficult and unsettled; its decision admittedly controlled the existence of a federal question, since a finding that there was no possibility of reverter under Illinois law would have finally determined the issue on which the case was decided. And yet, although a method may have existed for obtaining an adjudication on the issue from the Illinois courts, 335 U. S. 632, 673-4, this Court followed the procedure which we adopt here of depending upon the determination of state law by the Court of Appeals. 335 U. S. 701, 707-8. In so doing, it followed the decision in Helvering v. Stuart, 317 U. S. 154, 161, et seq. Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64, a commonlaw case, is itself a precedent against any general ruling that cases properly in the federal courts that depend upon 24 Where there is no suggestion to hold and send to a state court for the resolution of a state issue, we decide issues of state law. See cases in federal courts under diversity jurisdiction. Wichita Royalty Co. v. City National Bank, 306 U. S. 103; West v. A. T. & T. Co., 311 U. S. 223; Fidelity Trust Co. v. Field, 311 U. S. 169; Six Companies v. Highway Dist., 311 U. S. 180; Stoner v. New York Life Ins. Co., 311 U. S. 464; Palmer v. Hoffman, 318 U. S. 109, 117. |