The Anti-Plaintiff Pending Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Pro-Defendant Composition of the Federal Rulemaking Committees

74 Pages Posted: 23 Jun 2015 Last revised: 4 Dec 2015

Date Written: June 19, 2015

Abstract

In the classical David-and-Goliath lawsuit brought by an individual person against an institutional defendant, the pending amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure hurt David and help Goliath more than any previous round of amendments. The amendments represent corporate defendants' victory in the thirty-year war to limit the scope of discovery by enshrining "proportionality" as part of the definition of, rather than a limitation on, the scope of discovery. The amendments will also make it more difficult for plaintiffs to obtain an adverse inference jury instruction or other sanctions for a defendant's intentional loss of electronic evidence. For no good reason, the amendments will reduce the length of time within which plaintiffs must effectuate service of process, thereby gifting defendants with a corresponding reduction in the statute of limitations. In addition, the amendments wipe out thirty-six official forms, on the thin excuse that the Advisory Committee wants to "get out of the forms business"; in fact, many interpret the move as a tacit agreement with the heightened pleading standard imposed on plaintiffs by the Supreme Court in Twombly and Iqbal.

The amendments' mostly anti-plaintiff effect is evidenced by a stark split in the public reaction, with plaintiffs' lawyers almost unanimously against most of the amendments and defendants' lawyers almost unanimously in favor. But the Advisory Committee was astoundingly indifferent to the polarized public reaction to the proposed amendments. One Advisory Committee member dismissed the stories told at the public hearings by plaintiffs' lawyers about their need for discovery as "Queen-For-A-Day issues," a reference to a 50-year-old daytime television show in which women tearfully told their real-life sob stories to vie for prizes.

Remarkably, in evaluating the need for these amendments, the Committee did not rely on very much case law, any government caseload statistics, or any of the ninety-four district court reports on "cost and delay" mandated by the Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990. Instead, the Committee commissioned a mound of so-called "empirical studies" which consisted mostly of flawed opinion surveys of self-selected attorneys. The one methodologically sound study, conducted by the Federal Judicial Center, found that discovery worked well and at modest cost in most federal cases. The Committee either ignored or mischaracterized the FJC's study. Given the makeup of the Advisory Committee and the Standing Committee, none of this is surprising. The members of both committees are all appointed by Chief Justice John Roberts, and except for a few tokens, they are ideologically predisposed to think like Federalist Society members, demographically predisposed to think like elite white males, and/or experientially predisposed to think like corporate defense lawyers. There is no explicit constitutional, statutory, or rules authority for the Chief Justice’s unbridled appointment power. The Article concludes by forecasting the passage of a default "requester pays discovery costs" rule that is sought by defense interests, unless the mechanism for appointment of federal rules committee members is changed.

Keywords: FRCP, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Civil Rules Advisory Committee

Suggested Citation

Moore, Patricia W., The Anti-Plaintiff Pending Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Pro-Defendant Composition of the Federal Rulemaking Committees (June 19, 2015). University of Cincinnati Law Review, Forthcoming, St. Thomas University School of Law (Florida) Research Paper No. 2015-09, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2621895

Patricia W. Moore (Contact Author)

St. Mary's University Law School ( email )

One Camino Santa Maria St
San Antonio, TX 78228
United States

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