Rule 23(c)(1)(B) was added to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 2003 as one of several amendments to govern the mechanics of class-action litigation. Although the Rule generated almost no concern among practitioners or scholars at the time of its enactment, it has since become an unexpected fount of litigation. The Rule does not address the all-important question of whether to certify a particular class; it simply specifies the contents of the order that district courts must compose after deciding that certification is proper. In short, certification orders must “define the class claims, issues, or defenses.” The leading opinion construing the Rule holds that it requires courts to provide detailed lists of the claims, issues, and defenses that will be resolved in the class action. That opinion is wrong. The text, history, and purposes of Rule 23(c)(1)(B) reveal the Rule’s limited scope: In ordinary cases, a certification order that simply references counts from the plaintiffs’ complaint or certifies “all of plaintiffs’ claims” would easily satisfy the Rule. Because many courts misread the Rule as requiring extensive detail, litigants have incentives to pursue wasteful motion battles over the mere formatting of class-certification orders. By debunking misinterpretations of the Rule, this Note attempts to end such battles.
Note
Yoder Revisited: Why the Landmark Amish Schooling Case Could—And Should—Be Overturned
Wisconsin v. Yoder is a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that Amish children could not be compelled by the state to attend school past eighth grade, as this would violate their parents’ Free Exercise rights. This Note asserts that Yoder is an obsolete opinion that is ripe for overturning.
The Supreme Court takes into account four stare decisis factors when reconsidering a prior decision. It considers (1) whether the factual circumstances have evolved in such a manner “as to have robbed the old decision of significant application or justification,” (2) whether the decision is subject to reliance interests that would create “special hardships or inequities” if it were overruled, (3) whether “related principles of law have so far developed as to have left the old decision no more than a remnant of abandoned doctrine,” and (4) whether the decision has proven to be unworkable.
This Note holds that the Yoder decision does not hold up under these considerations. It contends that (1) the factual assumptions that underpin Yoder are no longer accurate and that recent changes have undermined the decision, (2) that the Yoder exemption is not subject to reliance interests that would create “special hardships or inequities” if it were overturned, (3) that the Court’s ruling in Employment Division v. Smith has leftYoder a relic of abandoned doctrine, and (4) that the “hybrid-rights” theory that Yoder’scontinued applicability rests on is unworkable.
The Note concludes that because Yoder fails each of the four stare decisis tests, the decision should be overturned.
The Untold Story of Rhode Island v. Innis: Justice Potter Stewart and the Development of Modern Self-Incrimination Doctrine
Self-incrimination doctrine took a surprising turn in Rhode Island v. Innis (1980). Interpreting the meaning of “interrogation” under Miranda v. Arizona (1966), the Supreme Court ruled expansively: interrogation included words or actions that police should know are likely to elicit an incriminating response from a suspect. Thus, after years of relentless attack, the Burger Court obviated the possibility of overruling Miranda.
Literature is sparse on Innis, though existing analyses suggest that a circuit split on the meaning of “interrogation” and a need to resolve issues left outstanding by Brewer v. Williams (1977), a previous Sixth Amendment right to counsel case that also implicated the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, created sufficient pressure to force the Court’s hand. These explanations, however, are deficient: they fail to account for the fact that there were narrower definitions of interrogation that the Innis Court could have chosen and that there existed plausible grounds other than Miranda upon which the Court could have ruled.
This Note argues that two previously unacknowledged factors explain Innis: (1) Justice Potter Stewart—whose legacy in Sixth Amendment jurisprudence gained considerably from an expansive Fifth Amendment ruling; and (2) stare decisis—which garnered Miranda begrudging respect from Court conservatives. By reassessing law literature contemporaneous to Innis, and drawing on Supreme Court cases, briefs, and oral arguments, and previously unavailable primary source material from Justice Stewart’s Supreme Court files, this Note argues convincingly that Innis’s result was predictable and that its impact on self-incrimination jurisprudence was more significant than previously acknowledged.