The Nebraska Rules of Civil Procedure

Abstract

The request of the editor of the Review that I comment upon the new Nebraska rules of civil procedure, which become effective ninety days after the adjournment of the legislature next year, was one which I felt I could not refuse in view of my general interest in procedural reform. But now that I have spent some time in study of the rules and their background, I wonder if I was wise in yielding. For my experience in practice, in teaching, and in writing, and as judge seems to have so conditioned me in favor of a very simple--even “loose,” according to some people—system of pleading that I instinctively react for or against a new set of rules as they may or may not fit in with my views. Of course, that is a natural reaction of any critic; but I have the added difficulty that I have so often expressed my views as to make anything more I may say at least lack novelty. I am prompted to this confession (unusual for a judge, particularly an ex-law professor) especially by Mr. Shackelford’s vigorous dissent from the Nebraska rules; for his arguments are those with which I have been disagreeing for years and, indeed, which I attempted to combat more than a dozen years ago in a text on Code Pleading. Another iteration of my views, therefore, may not be helpful to Nebraskans; but I expect I am in honor bound to fulfill my commitment.