Timothy Defoe v. Lenroy Phillip

OPINION

SMITH, Circuit Judge.

For over half a century, this Court has been the final interpreter of Virgin Islands law. In that role, we have made an incalculable number of rulings and have issued hundreds of decisions. But our role changed in 2007 with the founding of the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands. We must now decide whether and when that nascent Supreme Court may reject our pre-2007 interpretations of Virgin Islands law.1

I

Lenroy Phillip and Timothy Defoe worked together at an oil refinery in the United States Virgin Islands. On October 27, 2007, Phillip was driving a company-owned…