Page:Johnson v. Rockwell Automation, Inc.pdf/7

 See Weidrick v. Arnold, 310 Ark. 138, 835 S.W.2d 843 (1992). In Weidrick, we noted that the statute required a sixty-day notice to sue as a condition before commencing an action for medical injury. See id. This court reasoned in both cases that, "[w]e can think of few rules more basic to the civil process than a rule defining the means by which complaints are filed and actions commenced for a common law tort." Summerville, 369 Ark. at 239, 253 S.W.3d at 420 (citing Weidrick, 310 Ark. at 146, 835 S.W.2d at 847). We noted in Summerville that the legislation in that case, as well as the legislation in Weidrick, had added an encumbrance to commencing a cause of action that was not found in Ark. R. Civ. P. 3. See Summerville, supra. As was the case in Summerville and Weidrick, the nonparty-fault provision in the instant case conflicts with our "rules of pleading, practice and procedure." While respondents assert the nonparty-fault provision should be upheld because it does not directly conflict with our rules of procedure as the legislative requirements did in Summerville and Weidrick, we take this opportunity to note that so long as a legislative provision dictates procedure, that provision need not directly conflict with our procedural rules to be unconstitutional. This is because rules regarding pleading, practice, and procedure are solely the responsibility of this court. See Ark. Const. amend. 80, § 3.

Law is substantive when it is "[t]he part of the law that creates, defines, and regulates the rights, duties, and powers of parties." Summerville, 369 Ark. at 237, 253 S.W.3d at 419-20 (citing Black's Law Dictionary 1443 (7th ed. 1999)). Procedural law is defined as "[t]he rules that prescribe the steps for having a right or duty judicially enforced, as opposed to the law Rh