This Article is part of an ongoing study of the behavior of American political institutions, including courts, with respect to federal civil litigation. We are particularly interested in litigation that involves statutory private enforcement regimes and other legal provisions that predictably affect incentives and opportunities for access to federal court to enforce federal rights. We believe that, in order to understand the modern history of federal law that affects private enforcement and access to court with respect to federal rights (collectively, “private enforcement”), it is necessary to view the salient events in their institutional context, recognizing that the institutions involved are competing to regulate social and economic life in the United States. As part of our inquiry into how interactions and competition among institutions have produced the contemporary state of federal civil litigation—and in recognition of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure—we consider ways in which the federal judiciary has affected private enforcement through control of procedure.
Volume 162 Issue 7 2014 Article