Ark-La Feed & Fertilizer Company v. Marco Chemical Company

I regard this case, as did Judge Henley below, as “an extremely close one”. The question is whether the Arkansas law, as interpreted by that state’s Supreme Court and as applied to the facts here, compels us to conclude that the case is governed by Rodgers v. Howard, 215 Ark. 43, 219 S.W.2d 240, on the one hand, or by Chapman Chemical Co. v. Taylor, 215 Ark. 630, 222 S.W.2d 820, on the other. Chapman followed Rodgers within three months in 1949 but did not cite the earlier case. Each apparently involved an Arkansas damage situs. If the present case were the first to be decided under the…