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Theseus In The Labyrinth: How State Constitutions Can Slay The Procedural Minotaur, Marcus Alexander Gadson
Theseus In The Labyrinth: How State Constitutions Can Slay The Procedural Minotaur, Marcus Alexander Gadson
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Civil procedure is one of the biggest hurdles to access to justice. An array of rules and interpretations of those rules have turned lawsuits into meandering mazes with a procedural minotaur waiting to gobble up meritorious claims. The problem is especially acute for the many Americans without abundant resources or access to a lawyer. Fortunately, there is a ready remedy, albeit one access to justice advocates have ignored: state constitutions. Forty state constitutions, which protect hundreds of millions of Americans, generally guarantee "[t]hat all courts shall be open, and every person, for an injury done him in his person, property …