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Schiavone: An Un-Fortune-Ate Illustration Of The Supreme Court's Role As Interpreter Of The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure, Joseph P. Bauer

Joseph P. Bauer

Let me identify the two basic theses of this paper. First, I believe that in the recent Schiavone v. Fortune case, the Supreme Court gave the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure under consideration there, Rule 15(c), an unduly restrictive reading. In this, the fiftieth year of the effective date of the Rules, it is particularly unfortunate to see any of the Rules given an unnecessarily grudging interpretation. My second assertion is that as a general matter, in interpreting the Federal Rules, courts should recognize that their role is different from the one they play in interpreting statutes or in applying …

The Erie Doctrine Revisited: How A Conflicts Perspective Can Aid The Analysis, Joseph P. Bauer

Joseph P. Bauer

I have taught Civil Procedure for the past twenty-five years. Having returned to teaching Conflict of Laws last year, after not having taught that course since the mid-1980s, I was interested in re-examining the Erie doctrine from the vantage point of both of these subject areas. My goal was to see whether a combination of learning from these two related disciplines would introduce additional coherence into the analysis of this topic.

In one sense, the Erie doctrine and traditional choice of law determinations present analogous questions, since they both involve making a selection between competing legal rules. Choice of law …