Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, effective December 1, 2015, narrow the scope of discovery, shorten deadlines, and encourage judges’ involvement in managing cases. The ABA Section of Litigation is launching a 13-city Rules Amendments Roadshow program that highlights and discusses the changes to the rules. Section of Litigation leaders say the new amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are the most significant change to federal civil practice in the last decade.

The New Proportionality Rule
Under the amended rules, discovery now hinges on a single key concept: proportionality. Amended Rule 26 adds language that states that a party is entitled to discovery that is relevant to claims and defenses and “proportional to the needs of the case . . .” The scope of discovery now incorporates several factors that should be considered to determine whether a discovery request is proportional to the needs of the case. They include the importance of the issues at stake in the case, the amount in controversy, the parties’ relative access to relevant information, the parties’ resources, the importance of the discovery in resolving access to the information, and whether the expense of the proposed discovery outweighs the likely benefit.

The proportionality rule signals a sea change in the scope of discovery. “The biggest change will be proportionality and getting rid of the phrase ‘reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence’ in Rule 26,” says Michele D. Hangley, Philadelphia, PA, cochair of the Rules Amendments Roadshow and member of the Section’s Federal Practice Task Force. “Previously, the ‘reasonably calculated’ phrase had been moved to a less prominent place,” she says. “Now it has been removed from the rule entirely.” Removing the “reasonably calculated” phrase, Hangley suggests, “will make a difference in how parties justify the discovery that they are seeking.”

Read original article


Tags: