Opinion ID: 2438852
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Tradition

Text: There is no need to go into the development of the class action from the old equity bill of peace remedy. A fine treatment can be found in 7A, C. Wright, A. Miller, and M. Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure, §§ 1751-1753 (1986). Fed.R.Civ.P. 23 is the culmination of that development. In the Drew case, we noted that our Rule 23 did not copy the federal rule but that, in Rule 23(a), we copied our superseded, 100-year-old statute, and in subsection (b) we copied only a little of the federal rule. While it is true that subsection (a) of our rule differs from that of the federal rule, the difference is one of language only. Both set out the same basic requirements for a class action. Subsection (b) of our rule, like that of the federal rule, sets out the prerequisites in addition to those found in subsection (a). Our subsection (b) is taken directly from subsections (b)(3) and (c)(1) of the federal rule. The parts of the federal rule omitted have to do with specifying further the kinds of actions which may be certified and some procedural requirements, such as the one for mandatory notice to class members mentioned above. Nothing about the parts of the federal rule omitted from our rule seems to bear on the question of whether class actions are to be favored or not. It seems apparent that the spirit of the federal rule is to be found in our Rule 23 even if all the words are not. Our attempts to cling to our pre-rule tradition may have been inconsistent with the rule. Reporter's Note 1. states the rule was based on a superseded statute which contained few procedural guidelines and that it does not change prior law. While the note is correct in stating that the rule, like the statute, has a paucity of procedural directions, we recognized in the Drew case that the law had been changed to liberalize the class action, at least in one respect. Use of it will obviously be more extensive if there need no longer be common questions of law and fact.