214th birthday of the Judiciary Act of 1789.

Please allow a former teacher of Civil Procedure and Federal Courts to note the anniversary of the passage of the Judiciary Act of 1789. Building on the sketchiest of language in Article III of the Constitution (which provides for "one supreme Court, and . . . such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish"), the Act gave us the District Court/Court of Appeals/Supreme Court structure we have today, though with very different functions for the lower courts. The Act also filled in the details of diversity jurisdiction; created removal jurisdiction, the predecessor of the All Writs Act, and a rule that compels discovery in actions at law to the same extent as proceedings in chancery; codified the "no adequate remedy at law" rule for equitable actions; created rules of procedure for trials and appeals; defined the (nondiscretionary) appellate jurisdiction (as opposed to the discretionary jurisdiction over writs of review) of the Supreme Court; and created the office the the United States Attorney in each federal judicial district. All of this and more can be tracked from 1787 to 1982 through the "Landmark Judicial Legislation" page of the Federal Judicial Center.