The Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill
of Rights. This amendment codifies the right to a jury trial in certain civil
cases, and inhibits courts from overturning a jury's findings of fact.
An early version of the Seventh Amendment was introduced in Congress in
1789 by James Madison, along with the other amendments, in response to
Anti-Federalist objections to the new Constitution. Congress proposed a
revised version of the Seventh Amendment to the states on September 28, 1789, and
by December 15, 1791, the necessary three-quarters of the states had
ratified it. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson announced the adoption of the
amendment on March 1, 1792. The Seventh Amendment is generally
considered one of the more straightforward amendments of the Bill
of Rights. While the Seventh Amendment's provision for jury trials in civil cases
has never been incorporated almost every state voluntarily complies with this
requirement. The prohibition of overturning a jury's findings of fact
applies to federal cases, state cases involving federal law, and to review of
state cases by federal courts. United States v. Wonson established the
"historical test", which interpreted the amendment as relying on English common
law to determine whether a jury trial was necessary in a civil suit. The
amendment thus does not guarantee trial by jury in cases under maritime law, in
lawsuits against the government itself, and for many parts of patent claims. In
all other cases, the jury can be waived by consent of the parties.
The amendment additionally guarantees a minimum of six members for a jury in a
civil trial. The amendment's twenty dollar threshold has not been the
subject of much scholarly or judicial writing; that threshold remains
applicable despite the inflation that has occurred since the 18th century.
Text 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. Background
After several years of comparatively weak government under the Articles of
Confederation, a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia proposed a
new constitution on September 17, 1787, featuring a stronger chief executive and
other changes. George Mason, a Constitutional Convention delegate and
the drafter of Virginia's Declaration of Rights, proposed that a bill of rights
listing and guaranteeing civil liberties be included. Other delegates—including
future Bill of Rights drafter James Madison—disagreed, arguing that existing
state guarantees of civil liberties were sufficient and that any attempt to
enumerate individual rights risked implying that the federal government had
power to violate every other right. After a brief debate, Mason's proposal
was defeated by a unanimous vote of the state delegations. In the final days of
the convention, North Carolina delegate Hugh Williamson proposed a guarantee of
trial by jury in federal civil cases, but a motion to add this guarantee was
also defeated. However, for the Constitution to be
adopted, nine of the thirteen states were required to ratify it in state
conventions. Opposition to ratification was partly based on the Constitution's
lack of adequate guarantees for civil liberties. Supporters of the
Constitution in states where popular sentiment was against ratification
successfully proposed that their state conventions both ratify the Constitution
and call for the addition of a bill of rights.
One charge of the Anti-Federalists was that giving the U.S. Supreme Court
jurisdiction "both as to law and fact" would allow it to deny the findings of
jury trials in civil cases. Responding to these concerns, five state
ratification conventions recommended a constitutional amendment guaranteeing
the right to jury trial in civil cases. Proposal and ratification
In the 1st United States Congress, following the state legislatures'
request, James Madison proposed twenty constitutional amendments based on state
bills of rights and English sources such as the Bill of Rights 1689. Among them
was an amendment protecting findings of fact in civil cases exceeding a certain
dollar value from judicial review. Madison proposed that this amendment be
added directly to Article Three, though Congress later determined to add the
proposed Bill of Rights to the end of the Constitution, leaving the original
text intact. Congress also reduced Madison's proposed twenty amendments to
twelve, and these were proposed to the states for ratification on September 25,
1789. By the time the Bill of Rights was
submitted to the states for ratification, opinions had shifted in
both parties. Many Federalists, who had previously opposed a Bill of Rights, now
supported the Bill as a means of silencing the Anti-Federalists' most
effective criticism. Many Anti-Federalists, in contrast, now
opposed it, realizing that the Bill's adoption would greatly lessen the
chances of a second constitutional convention, which they desired.
Anti-Federalists such as Richard Henry Lee also argued that the Bill left the
most objectionable portions of the Constitution, such as the federal
judiciary and direct taxation, intact. On November 20, 1789, New Jersey
ratified eleven of the twelve amendments, rejecting an amendment to
regulate congressional pay raises. On December 19 and 22, respectively,
Maryland and North Carolina ratified all twelve amendments. On January 19, 25,
and 28, 1790, respectively, South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Delaware
ratified the Bill, though New Hampshire rejected the amendment on Congressional
pay raises, and Delaware rejected Article I, which regulated the size of
the House. This brought the total of ratifying states to six of the required
ten, but the process stalled in other states: Connecticut and Georgia found a
Bill of Rights unnecessary and so refused to ratify, while Massachusetts
ratified most of the amendments, but failed to send official notice to the
Secretary of State that it had done so. In February through June of 1790, New
York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island ratified eleven of the amendments,
though all three rejected the amendment on Congressional pay raises. Virginia
initially postponed its debate, but after Vermont was admitted to the Union
in 1791, the total number of states needed for ratification rose to eleven.
Vermont ratified on November 3, 1791, approving all twelve amendments, and
Virginia finally followed on December 15, 1791. Secretary of State Thomas
Jefferson announced the adoption of the ten successfully ratified amendments on
March 1, 1792. Judicial interpretation
The Seventh Amendment is generally considered one of the more
straightforward amendments of the Bill of Rights. Scholar Charles W. Wolfram
states that it has usually "been interpreted as if it were virtually a
self-explanatory provision". Unlike most of the provisions of the
Bill of Rights, the Seventh Amendment has never been applied to the states.
The Supreme Court stated in Walker v. Sauvinet, Minneapolis & St. Louis
Railroad v. Bombolis and Hardware Dealers' Mut. Fire Ins. Co. of Wisconsin
v. Glidden Co. that states were not required to provide jury trials in civil
cases. Nonetheless, most states voluntarily guarantee the right to a
civil jury trial, and they must do so in certain state court cases that are
decided under federal law. = The historical test=
The first judicial opinion issued on the amendment came in United States v.
Wonson, in which the federal government wished to retry the facts of a civil
case it had lost against Samuel Wonson. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story,
acting as a circuit court judge, ruled for Wonson, stating that to retry the
facts of the case would violate the Seventh Amendment. Regarding the
amendment's phrase "the rules of common law", Story wrote:
Beyond all question, the common law here alluded to is not the common law of any
individual state,, but it is the common law of England, the grand reservoir of
all our jurisprudence. It cannot be necessary for me to expound the grounds
of this opinion, because they must be obvious to every person acquainted with
the history of the law. Wonson's ruling established the
"historical test", which interpreted the amendment as relying on English common
law to determine whether a jury trial was necessary in a civil suit. Applying
the historical test in Parsons v. Bedford, for example, the Supreme Court
found that jury trials were not constitutionally guaranteed for cases
under maritime law, an area in which English common law did not require
juries. The Court further clarified this rule as a "fixed historical test" in
Thompson v. Utah, which established that the relevant guide was English common
law of 1791, rather than that of the present day. In Chauffeurs, Teamsters,
and Helpers Local No. 391 v. Terry, the Court explained that the right to a jury
trial provided by the Seventh Amendment encompasses more than the common law
forms of action recognized in 1791, but rather any lawsuit in which parties’
legal rights were to be determined, as opposed to suits which only involve
equitable rights and remedies. In Galloway v. United States, the Court
permitted a directed verdict in a civil suit, finding that it did not violate
the Seventh Amendment under the fixed historical test. The Court extended the
amendment's guarantees in Beacon Theatres v. Westover and Dairy Queen,
Inc. v. Wood, ruling in each case that all issues that required trial by jury
under English common law also required trial by jury under the Seventh
Amendment. This guarantee was also further extended to shareholder suits in
Ross v. Bernhard and to copyright infringement lawsuits in Feltner v.
Columbia Pictures TV. In Markman v. Westview Instruments,
Inc., the Court ruled that many parts of patent claims are questions of law
rather than of fact, and that the Seventh Amendment guarantee of a jury
trial therefore does not necessarily apply. Lawsuits against the federal
government itself do not receive Seventh Amendment protections due to the
doctrine of sovereign immunity. In Lehman v. Nakshian, the Court ruled that
citizens may sue the federal government only in cases where such right has been
granted by act of Congress. = Jury size=
The Supreme Court has held that the Seventh Amendment's guarantee of a jury
trial also guarantees a jury of sufficient size. While the Court found a
six-member jury sufficient to meet the amendment's requirements in Colgrove v.
Battin, it ruled in Ballew v. Georgia that a five-member jury violated the
amendment's intent. Regardless of size, the jury's verdict must be unanimous.
= Twenty Dollars Clause= Little historical evidence exists to
interpret the Twenty Dollars Clause, which was added in a closed session of
the Senate, and is often omitted in judicial and scholarly discussion of the
amendment. A Harvard Law Review article described it as "mysterious ... of
shrouded origin and neglected for two centuries", stating that "no one
believes that the Clause bears on the right protected by the Seventh
Amendment." According to law professor Philip Hamburger, this clause was
intended to become obsolete by inflation, so that its application to
more cases would be phased out gradually.
Congress has never extended federal diversity jurisdiction to amounts that
small. Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the amount in dispute must
exceed $75,000 for a case to be heard in federal court based on diversity of the
parties' citizenship. However, civil cases may arise in federal court that
are not diversity cases, in which case the Twenty Dollars Clause may apply.
= Re-examination of facts= The Re-Examination Clause of the Seventh
Amendment states: "In suits at common law, ... no fact tried by jury, shall be
otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the
rules of the common law." This clause forbids any court from reexamining or
overturning any factual determinations made by a jury guaranteeing that facts
decided by that jury cannot be reexamined at a later date. Exceptions
to this prohibition are possible if it is later determined that legal errors
were made or evidence submitted was insufficient in some way. In such cases
the reexamination is conducted by another jury so that the decision is
still left in the hands of the people. The clause applies only to cases where
private rights i.e. rights that exist between private citizens have been
violated. The Re-Examination Clause applies not only to federal courts, but
also to "a case tried before a jury in a state court and brought to the Supreme
Court on appeal." Justice Samuel Nelson wrote the opinion
of the Supreme Court in The Justices v. Murray, 76 U.S. 9 Wall. 274, in which he
quoted Justice Joseph Story to explain the modes to reexamine facts tried by
juries according to common law: “Mr. Justice Story […] referring to this part
of the amendment, observed […] that it was 'a prohibition to the courts of the
United States to re-examine any facts tried by a jury in any other manner
[than according to Common Law].' […] He further observed that 'the only modes
known to the common law to re-examine such facts was the granting of a new
trial by the court where the issue was tried, or the award of a venire facias
de novo, by the appellate court, for some error of law that had intervened in
the proceedings.'” As common law provided, the judge could
set aside a jury verdict when the judge decided that the verdict was contrary to
the evidence or the law. Common law precluded the judge from himself
entering a verdict; a new trial, with a new jury, was the only course
permissible. In Slocum v. New York Insurance Co., the Supreme Court upheld
this rule. Later cases have undermined Slocum, but generally only when the
evidence is overwhelming, or if a specific law provides narrow guidelines
by which there can be no reasonable question as to the required outcome, may
the court enter "judgment as a matter of law" or otherwise set aside the jury's
findings. References
= Notes= = Citations=
= Bibliography= Baicker-McKee, Steven; William M.
Janssen; and John B. Corr [1997]. A Student's Guide to the Federal Rules of
Civil Procedure. Thomson West. Beeman, Richard. Plain, Honest Men: The
Making of the American Constitution. Random House.
Labunski, Richard E.. James Madison and the struggle for the Bill of Rights.
Oxford University Press. Levy, Leonard Williams. Seasoned
Judgments: The American Constitution, Rights, and History. Transaction
Publishers. Maier, Pauline. Ratification: The People
Debate the Constitution, 1787–1788. Simon and Schuster.
Wolfram, Charles W.. "The Constitutional History of the Seventh Amendment", 57
Minnesota Law Review 639, 670-71. External links
Kilman, Johnny and George Costello.. The Constitution of the United States of
America: Analysis and Interpretation. CRS Annotated Constitution: Seventh
Amendment