Discovery and the role of the judge in civil law jurisdictions

Notre Dame Law Review

Volumn 73, Issue 4, 1998, Pages 1017-1027

  Hazard Jr , Geoffrey C ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA   (United States)

^b American Law Institute   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0032368629     PISSN: 07453515     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (29)

1. See RESTATEMENT OF THE FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW OF THE UNITED STATES § 442, REPORTERS' NOTES, note 1, and sources cited there.
2. See id. at notes 2-5.
3. see FED. R. Civ. P. 26(b).
4. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(b)(2)(C).
5. See Geoffrey Hazard, From Whom No Secrets Are Hid, 76 TEX. L. REV. (forthcoming 1998); 1 RESTATEMENT OF THE FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW OF THE UNITED STATES, supra note 1; e.g., G. WATSON & M. MCGOWEN, ONTARIO CIVIL PRACTICE 567-600 (1998) (differentiating right of deposition of opposing party from deposition of third party witnesses only upon court approval).
6. See generally PRE-TRIAL AND PRE-HEARING PROCEDURES WORLDWIDE (Charles Platto ed., 1990).
7. Cf. Leatherman v. Tarrant County Narcotics Intelligence & Coordination Unit, 507 U.S. 163 (1993) (rejecting a contention that there should be a "heightened pleading standard," in other words more stringent requirements of particularity, in claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983). There have long been calls that such a standard of pleading be adopted generally. See Moses Lasky, Memorandum for the Committee on Rule 8, 13 F.R.D. 275 (1952). The American College of Trial Lawyers in 1997 has made a functionally similar proposal, to require that the standard for discovery be "relevance" of the material to be discovered to the issues rather than the standard of "reasonably calculated to lead" to admissible evidence.
8. Cf. Marvin E. Frankel, The Search for Truth: An Umpireal View, 123 U. PA. L. REV. 1031 (1975).
9. See Benjamin Kaplan, Civil Procedure - Reflections on the Comparison of Systems, 9 BUFF. L. REV. 409 (1960); Cf. John H. Langbein, The German Advantage in Civil Procedure, 52 U. CHI. L. REV. 823 (1985).
10. See Benjamin Kaplan, Civil Procedure - Reflections on the Comparison of Systems, 9 BUFF. L. REV. 409 (1960); Cf. John H. Langbein, The German Advantage in Civil Procedure, 52 U. CHI. L. REV. 823 (1985).
11. See Kaplan, supra note 9.
12. A vivid demonstration of the need of a party protagonist to winnow evidence down to that which is convincing without being confusing is the contrast in the presentations in the O.J. Simpson case, which involved mind-numbing prolongation, and that in the Timothy McVeigh case, where the prosecution, guided by the debacle in "O.J.," shortened the case by abandoning much potentially admissible evidence.
13. 482 U.S. 522 (1987).
14. Convention on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil or Commercial Matters, The Hague, March 18, 1970, 23 U.S.T. 2555, T.I.A.S. No. 7444.
15. See RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF THE FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW OF THE UNITED STATES § 473 (1987); Note, The Role of the Hague Convention for Gathering Evidence Abroad: Société Nationale Industrielle Aerospatiale v. United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, 24 STAN. J. INT'L L. 309 (1987).
16. See Note, Strict Enforcement of Extraterritorial Discovery, 38 STAN. L. REV. 841 (1986).
17. 95 U.S. (5 Otto) 714, 722 (1877).
18. Cf. Herron v. Southern Pac. Co., 283 U.S. 91 (1929).
19. See, e.g., H. Lee Sarokin & William E. Zuckerman, Presumed Innocent? Restrictions on Criminal Discovery in Federal Court Belie This Presumption, 43 RUTGERS L. REV. 1089 (1991).
20. Compare, e.g., Hudson v. Hermann Pfauter GmbH & Co., 117 F.R.D. 33 (N.D.N.Y. 1987) (applying Convention), with Benton Graphics v. Uddeholm Corp., 118 F.R.D. 386 (N.J. 1987) (applying Federal Rules).
21. Cf. Guaranty Trust Co. v. York, 326 U.S. 99 (1945).
22. Cf. Byrd v. Blue Ridge Rural Elec. Coop., Inc., 356 U.S. 525 (1958).
23. The analysis here is based on the valuable summary in KENNETH FLOYD LEDFORD, FROM GENERAL ESTATE TO SPECIAL INTEREST: GERMAN LA\VYERS 1878-1933, ch. 1 (1996).
24. The analysis here is based on a general history of the French Revolution and its significance in later French political consciousness. See, e.g., ROBERT TOMBS, FRANCE 1814-1914 (1996). The classic analysis is ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, L'ANCIEN REGIME ET LA REVOLUTION (New York, Harper & Brothers 1856). A celebrated modern portrayal of the French Revolution is SIMON SCHAMA, CITIZENS: A CHRONICLE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (1989).
25. The analysis here is based on a general history of the French Revolution and its significance in later French political consciousness. See, e.g., ROBERT TOMBS, FRANCE 1814-1914 (1996). The classic analysis is ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, L'ANCIEN REGIME ET LA REVOLUTION (New York, Harper & Brothers 1856). A celebrated modern portrayal of the French Revolution is SIMON SCHAMA, CITIZENS: A CHRONICLE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (1989).
26. The analysis here is based on a general history of the French Revolution and its significance in later French political consciousness. See, e.g., ROBERT TOMBS, FRANCE 1814-1914 (1996). The classic analysis is ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, L'ANCIEN REGIME ET LA REVOLUTION (New York, Harper & Brothers 1856). A celebrated modern portrayal of the French Revolution is SIMON SCHAMA, CITIZENS: A CHRONICLE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (1989).
27. The constitutional justification of administrative authority under American law, where the Constitution makes no mention of such authority, is essentially similar - that is, delegation from the legislature.
28. 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803).
29. On the political situation of bar and bench in France at the time of the Revolution, see generally DAVID BELL, LAWYERS AND CITIZENS: THE MAKING OF A POLITICAL ELITE IN OLD REGIME FRANCE 185-94 (1994), and sources cited therein.