The Party Respectfully Requests a Jury Trial on All Issues So Triable: What Issues Are Triable to a Jury and What Issues Should Be Triable to a Jury? a Comment on the Right to a Jury Trial, With a Focus on Civil Trials, and When the Right Exists
| Publication year | 2022 |
The Party Respectfully Requests A Jury Trial On All Issues So Triable: What issues are triable to a jury and what issues should be triable to a jury? A comment on the right to a jury trial, with a focus on civil trials, and when the right exists
Michael Downing
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A. Federal Law
"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed . . . ."1 But what about civil prosecutions? What about prosecutions under state law, not federal? What does the universally expected "right to a jury trial" really mean or afford the parties to a trial?
Under federal law and the United States Constitution, by the time the Bill of Rights was drafted, the ideal of an accused's right to a jury trial was already deeply rooted within society.2 However, the right to a jury trial is only guaranteed by the United States Constitution for
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criminal prosecutions—in fact the right to a jury trial is arguably weaker than the average person thinks. The Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, in federal prosecutions, does not apply to civil cases, may be waived by parties, and does not necessarily apply to prosecutions under state law.
By the time our constitution was written, the right to a jury trial in criminal cases existed in England and traced its roots to the Magna Carta.3 The reverence for the inviolate right to a jury trial in criminal cases developed from the revolutionaries' distrust of the English king and their desire for fair trials.4 The revolutionaries believed a trial by jury safeguards the rights of the accused.
Blackstone celebrated jury trials as a "strong and two-fold barrier . . . between the liberties of the people and the prerogative of the crown" because "the truth of every accusation . . . [must] be confirmed by the unanimous suffrage of twelve of his equals and neighbors, indifferently chosen and superior to all suspicion."5 Jury trials are granted to criminally accused defendants to prevent inequitable oppression by the government. They are also guaranteed to limit judicial interference, sly prosecutors, and biased judges.6
While the "right of trial by jury under [Const. of U.S. Amend. 7], applies to Federal courts and not State courts,"7 state constitutions of all the original states similarly guarantee the right to a jury trial in criminal convictions and each state to join the union thereafter followed suit.8 Today, no state has dispensed of the right to a jury trial in serious criminal cases, nor made movements to do so.9 The right to a jury trial in criminal prosecutions is firmly protected for all; however, a parties right to a jury trial in civil cases is not so protected. The remainder of this Comment will discuss the nuance, rules, and impact of the right, no-right dichotomy of civil jury trials and their benefits and detractions.
The Seventh Amendment of the United States Constitution provides the federal law on the right to a jury trial in civil cases. The Seventh Amendment provides
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In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.10
The Seventh Amendment's coverage is "limited to rights and remedies peculiarly legal in their nature, and such as it was proper to assert in courts of law, and by the appropriate modes and proceedings of courts of law."11 Under the Seventh Amendment, "action[s] involv[ing] rights and remedies of the sort traditionally enforced in an action at law, rather than in an action in equity or admiralty" "require[d] trial by jury."12 The lack of a right to a jury in civil suits has traditionally been upheld under the Seventh Amendment when the civil suit in question was not a suit traditionally at common law or the issues raised were not legal in nature.13
The use of the term "common law" in the Seventh Amendment reflects the traditional division of the English and United States legal system. The legal system is divided into separate—law and equity—jurisdictions. Actions cognizable in courts of law were generally triable to a jury by right, whereas actions in equity were afforded no right to a jury. Unlike the English court system, however, United States courts are unitary and have jurisdiction in both law and equity. Even though United States courts are unitary, the distinct law and procedures for both actions cognizable at equity and actions cognizable at law still, however, exist.
Traditionally, the Chancery Court, named for the Lord Chancellor of England and now known as the court of equity, served as a remedy for those unable to obtain an adequate common law remedy, or legal remedy. Those unable to obtain common law remedy could petition the King of England, who would refer the case to the Lord Chancellor. The Chancery grew into its own court with formal procedures and doctrines. Compared to the rigid common law court, the Chancery Court provided remedies based on the notion of fairness. While the common law court
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routinely provided monetary damages, the Chancery Court would order equitable relief. As a general rule, disputes in the Chancery Court were heard by the Chancellor without a jury.14
The United States' adoption of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1938 merged law and equity claims which previously had to be brought as separate causes of action.15 Accordingly, "mixed cases" or cases alleging issues both at equity and at law began to arise. Mixed cases, however, are still required to follow the traditional law and equity distinction as it pertains to a right to a jury—difficulty addressing this issue resulted as the frequency of mixed cases continued to grow.16
The issue of mixed cases, with separate issues having their own rules and procedures, has been resolved, within the federal law system, by stressing the known and expected fundamental nature of the United
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States jury trial right. The federal system sought to protect against diminution of the right to a jury trial through parties repeatedly resorting to equitable principals. For example, in Beacon Theatres v. Westover,17 the first landmark Seventh Amendment case, the Supreme Court of the United States held, "only under the most imperative circumstances, circumstances which in view of the flexible procedures of the Federal Rules we cannot now anticipate, can the right to a jury trial of legal issues be lost through prior determination of equitable claims."18 In Dairy Queen v Wood,19 the second landmark Seventh Amendment case, the plaintiff sought several types of relief, including legal and equitable relief. The Court held—even though the legal claim for relief was incidental to the equitable relief, the Seventh Amendment required the legal issues to be tried to a jury.20 Accordingly, a rule emerged that legal claims must be tried over equitable ones and must be tried before a jury should the litigant wish.
The Seventh Amendment, as treated by the Supreme Court, preserves the right to a jury trial in civil cases as it "existed under the English common law when the Amendment was adopted."21 The amendment's primary purpose is to preserve
the common-law distinction between the province of the court and that of the jury, whereby, in the absence of express or implied consent to the contrary, issues of law are to be resolved by the court and issues of fact are to be determined by the jury under appropriate instructions by the court.22
Therefore, the matters tried by a jury in England in 1787, the year the Seventh Amendment was adopted, are to be tried to a jury today, and the matters that were tired to a judge in England in 1787 are to be so tried today.23 When new remedies are created, the right of action should be analogized to its historical counterpart or existing remedy, at
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law or in equity, for the purpose of determining whether there is a right of jury trial, unless the remedy prescribes a method.24
Accordingly, civil suits, unlike criminal prosecutions, do not benefit from a blanket guarantee of a right to a jury trial as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. The right of trial by jury, though essential in criminal cases, is not so much so in civil cases.25 Generally, there is no guaranteed right to jury trial in equity cases, constitutionally or statutorily.26
B. State Law
State law on the right to a civil jury trial varies by constitution and statute promulgated by each state. Georgia's constitution for example states, "[t]he right to trial by jury shall remain inviolate . . .";27 however, the constitutional guarantee only "guarantees the right to a jury trial only with respect to cases as to which there existed a right to jury trial at common law or by statute at the time of the adoption of the Georgia Constitution in 1798."28 Georgia's constitution only protects claims tried to a jury at the time of the constitutions creation—it guarantees "the continuance of the right as it existed at common law or by statute at the time the constitution was originally adopted."29 It does not afford a jury trial "in all cases."30 Georgia's common law, however, has developed since the passage of the constitution in 1798 with the Civil Practice Act31 to "guarantee the right of a jury trial to civil litigants in most cases."32
Another example, Colorado's constitution, contains no such guarantee of a right to a jury trial in a civil action. Nor does Colorado have a statute that guarantees the right to a jury trial in...
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