Peoceduke

The body of rules, whether of practice or of pleading, whereby rights are efifeotuated through the successful application of proper remedies. Opposed to the sum of the legal principles which constitute the substance of the law, and also distinguished from the law of evidence. 2 The term is so broad that it is seldom employed as a word of art. It includes whatever is embraced by the three technical terms pleading, evidence, and practice (qq. v.) — practice here meaning those legal rules which direct the course of proceeding to bring joarties into the court and the course of the court after they are brought in; and evidence meaning those rules of law whereby we determine what testimony is to be admitted and what rejected in each case, and what is the weight to be given to the testimony admitted. 3 Compare PEOCEEDl Na. The practice, pleadings, and fonns and modes of proceeding in civil cases, other than in equity and admiralty, in the circuit and district courts, shall conform, as near as may be, to those existing at the time in like causes in the courts of record of the State within which such circuit or district courts are held.* The conformity is to be " as near as may be, "'not as near as possible or as near as may be practicable.^ Adopting the forms of proceeding in the State courts, as near as may be, in the Federal courts, cloes not authorize an equitable defense (g. v.) to an action at law, nor blending legal and equitable claims in one suit.^ The purpose was to bring about uniformity in the law of procedure in the Federal and State courts of the same locality. The legislation had its origin in the code enactments of many of the States. While in the Federal tribunals the common-law pleadings, forms, and practice were adhered to; in the State courts of the same district the simpler forms of the > 3 Bl. Com. 109. ' [Brown's Law Diet. s Bishop, Crim. Proc. § 2; Kring v. Missoui'i, 107 U. S. <E. S. §914. s Phelps V. Oaks, 117 V. S. 239 (1886); Indianapolis, &o. E. Co. V. Horst, 93 id. 301 (1876); Senior v. Pierce, local code prevailed. This involved the necessity of studying two distinct systems of law, and of practicing according to the wholly dissimilar requirements of both.i The forms of mesne process and proceedings in equity and admiralty shall be according to the principles, rules, and usages which belong to the courts of equity and of admiralty, respectively, except when otherwise provided by statute or rules of court made in pursuance thereof; but the same may be altered by said courts or by the Supreme Court, by prescribed rules, consistent with the laws of the United States. 2