Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Villanova Law Review
Publication Date
1985
Volume
30
First Page
767
Abstract
(Excerpt)
The 1983 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (1983 amendments) represent by far the most ambitious effort to date to remedy the widely perceived problem of discovery abuse in federal practice. These amendments are designed to improve the conduct of discovery by eliminating improper practices and making discovery more cost-effective for the parties, and thereby helping the pretrial phase of an action to run more smoothly. The 1983 discovery amendments have three basic thrusts: (1) active involvement by the court in the pretrial phases of a case pursuant to rule 16; (2) recognition of specific limitations on discovery under rule 26; and (3) mandatory sanctions for misuse or overuse of discovery tools and use of baseless motions to avoid proper discovery or to compel needless discovery, as well as discretionary sanctions for failure to participate in good faith in pretrial conferences.
The key to the 1983 amendments is a heightened emphasis on the use of sanctions to curb discovery abuse. The new rules rely strongly on sanctions to effect a fundamental attitudinal change by the practicing bar and the courts regarding the discovery process. An ideal discovery system would provide for broad pretrial disclosure of facts at the lowest possible cost and would minimize unnecessary judicial intervention. It is far from self-evident, however, that the 1983 amendments' introduction of the mandatory sanctions concept will achieve the goals of the ideal system or put an end to abusive discovery practices that have been nurtured by attorneys for four and one-half decades. The purpose of this article is threefold: (1) to summarize and analyze the 1983 amendments as they relate to discovery; (2) to evaluate the probable effectiveness of the new rules, particularly those relating to sanctions, in remedying discovery abuse; and (3) to examine possible complementary or alternative approaches to addressing effectively the problems of discovery abuse, focusing specifically on the discovery reforms implemented in the Eastern District of New York in March, 1984.
Comments
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/vlr/vol30/iss3/3/