REDEEMING THE MISSED OPPORTUNITIES OF SHADY GROVE

• Published in: University of Pennsylvania law review Vol. 159; no. 1; pp. 17 - 76
• Main Authors: Burbank, Stephen B., Wolff, Tobias Barrington, Purcell, Edward A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Law School 01.12.2010; University of Pennsylvania, Law School
• Subjects: CIVIL PROCEDURE; Class action lawsuits; Class actions (Civil procedure); Common law; Diversity jurisdiction; Federal courts; Federal law; Federal rules of civil procedure (United States. Supreme Court); Laws, regulations and rules; Legal proceedings; LITIGATION; Rule of law; SEPARATION OF POWERS; State law; Statutory interpretation; Statutory law; Subject matter jurisdiction; Supreme Court decisions; UNITED STATES
• ISSN: 0041-9907; 1942-8537

Few subjects in the field of Procedure are characterized by greater legal abstraction than the collection of doctrines that govern the relationship between the federal and state courts. The grand experiment by which the drafters of the Constitution “split the atom of sovereignty,” as Justice Kennedy memorably put it, has not always produced readily administrable doctrines for the actual business of running parallel and overlapping judicial systems. The Court’s efforts to harmonize the operation of those systems through the Erie doctrine and its interpretations of the Rules Enabling Act—the statute that both authorizes and limits the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure—have been most successful when undertaken with an informed awareness of social dynamics and consequences. But successful harmonization of the judicial systems has been the exception, not the rule.
Few subjects in the field of Procedure are characterized by greater legal abstraction than the collection of doctrines that govern the relationship between the federal and state courts. The grand experiment by which the drafters of the Constitution "split the atom of sovereignty," as Justice Kennedy memorably put it, has not always produced readily administrable doctrines for the actual business of running parallel and overlapping judicial systems. The Court's efforts to harmonize the operation of those systems through the Erie doctrine and its interpretations of the Rules Enabling Act the statute that both authorizes and limits the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have been most successful when undertaken with an informed awareness of social dynamics and consequences. But successful harmonization of the judicial systems has been the exception, not the rule.