The Texas and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

Abstract

When twenty-one lawyers and judges bring to fruition in the short space of eight months a task so extensive as the preparation of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, it is obvious that a great deal of devoted effort, supported and made effective by a fine co-operative spirit, must have gone into the work. One who from outside the State views this achievement with some experience of the difficulties which attend an undertaking of such magnitude must necessarily express his admiration and tender his congratulations to those who shared in the accomplishment. Wisely he might well stop there, and avoid any attempt at detailed evaluation of the rules themselves. Unfamiliarity with local habits or peculiar local problems, indeed of vested interests in particular ways of doing things, may well suggest caution in deducing general and too extensive conclusions from a study of the product alone. But the movement for procedural reform which developed vigorous force with the adoption in 1938 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is so important that any feature it brings forth, whether aiding or retarding the general hope, now so strong, of procedural simplicity and uniformity, should be weighed and carefully appraised. Only by study and attempted evaluation of the various state developments can we expect to keep the cause of procedural reform from becoming static, just as though all advance must end with 1938. Therefore, I have deemed it an obligation to respond as best I could to the request of the editors for a comparison of the Texas and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.