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Statutory Genres: Substance, Procedure, Jurisdiction, Karen Petroski

All Faculty Scholarship

To decide many cases, courts need to characterize some of the legal rules involved, placing each one in a specific doctrinal category to identify the rule’s effect on the litigation. The consequences of characterization decisions can be profound, but the grounds for making and justifying them are often left unstated. This Article offers the first systematic comparison of two important types of legal characterization: the distinction between substantive and procedural rules or statutes, a distinction federal courts make in several contexts; and the distinction between jurisdictional and nonjurisdictional rules, especially those relating to litigation filing requirements. The Article explains the …