These rules developed after a long history of court decisions on related topics.
Pleadings and Procedural Rules
Once jurisdiction and applicable bodies of law have been established, effective and comprehensive complaints must be made before the matter can proceed. Complaint sufficiency varies from court to court, but generally includes the facts of the case and often cites relevant laws regarding jurisdiction and other matters, when they are not readily apparent. There are similar prescriptions for answers to complaints, and a variety of procedural rules that must be followed by both parties both in bringing/responding to a suit and during the process of a court hearing or trial.
Discovery, Summary Judgment, and Settlement
An abundant amount of information is subject to discovery rules, but not everything requested in a discovery motion is necessarily required to be turned over by law. The type of information being sought may or may not require additional court action before discovery is compelled, and the relevance of the information being sought must also be established by the requesting party. There are also a variety of protections that apply to certain information, including protections of various privileged relationships and of work products, that limit the scope of discovery rules. The practicality of discovery -- the amount of burden and expense incurred by complying to a discovery request -- can also be a factor in discovery decisions. In most circumstances, once information has been disclosed from one party to another, it is admissible at trial by either and both parties to the proceeding.
Summary judgments are awarded in cases where there is no issue of fact for a jury to consider, but only a dispute regarding the law. Such summary judgments can be motioned for by either party to a suit, with the burden of proof or evidence of lack thereof the responsibility of the moving party. Time for a proper...
Consideration of this issue must be made form a perspective favoring the nonmoving party -- summary judgment must only be awarded if there was no way for a reasonable jury to find against the moving party, or due to a lack of evidence presented by the nonmoving party.
Pretrial conferences and settlement proceedings must be rooted in some statute or rule for the court or any judge to have authority over the proceedings, and though many states and court systems have rules in place allowing fr pretrial conferences that deal with issues such as discovery, amending pleadings, setting time limits for certain phases of the proceeding, and other "managerial" aspects of the case. In many instances, settlement discussions and issue simplification is also explicitly allowed to take place at these meetings under the purview of the sitting judge. Even when the court is acting fully within the rules of such meetings and settlements, however, it cannot compel or even significantly impel parties to come to a settlement, and an appellate court can always determine that a lower court abused its authority during any pretrial meeting, if such a motion is brought to the higher court.
Conclusion
The information presented herein is only a basic outline of several of the key factors affecting civil procedure in the state and federal courts of the United States. Though these issues are highly complex, compliance with the many statues, rules, and laws governing the actions of the courts is necessary in order to maintain a truly just system that treats all issues of law with impartiality. Proper jurisdictional procedures also ensure the separation of federal and state powers an enumerated in the Constitution, and other procedural rules ensure fair treatment of all parties to a civil suit by each other and by the court system.
