Comment by Nathalie M. Walker-Dittman
In the United States, a strong policy in favor of jury trials exists in civil litigation. The seventh amendment provides for trial by jury in all civil actions where the amount in controversy exceeds twenty dollars. In a trilogy of cases decided between 1959 and 1970, the Supreme Court expounded its modern view of the seventh amendment jury trial guarantee, and broadened the amendment's scope to encompass situations that were excluded from the right to trial by jury at common law. Within the last five years, however, three federal district courts and one circuit court have held that in "complex" cases, juries are incompetent triers of fact, and on that ground overrode the seventh amendment. The decision in each of these cases rested on a footnote from the Supreme Court's 1970 opinion in Ross v. Bernhard, a decision which, ironically, expanded the scope of the right to trial by jury. Acknowledging that the seventh amendment mandates a jury trial for all claims which are "legal" in nature, the Ross court stated, in its now famous footnote: "As our cases indicate, the 'legal' nature of an issue is determined by considering, first, the pre-merger custom with reference to such questions; second, the remedy sought; and third, the practical abilities and limitations of juries." The courts which have refused jury demands determined that, on the basis of their reading of the Ross footnote, a jury trial need not be afforded when a court determines that a suit is so complex that it is beyond the "practical abilities and limitations of juries" to comprehend. These decisions threaten to establish an unfounded and unwise "complexity exception" to the seventh amendment's jury trial guarantee.
In addition, other decisions have indicated that seventh amendment questions are to be determined by applying the Ross "test." But the Ross footnote cannot be read as requiring or even permitting the consideration of "the practical abilities and limitations of juries" in interpreting the constitutional right to trial by jury in civil matters. The Supreme Court never intended the Ross footnote to be a "test" for seventh amendment questions. Moreover, this "test" is unworkable and fundamentally inconsistent with the policies underlying the role of the jury in civil actions in the United States.
About the Author
Nathalie M. Walker-Dittman.
Citation
55 Tul. L. Rev. 491 (1981)