Seventh Amendment:

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.

The Seventh Amendment guarantees a jury trial in civil cases at law in federal court.1 The Amendment traces its roots to English common law; some historians trace the origin of the English jury as far back as Ancient Greece.2 Sir William Blackstone, in his influential treatise on English common law, called the right “the glory of the English law” and necessary for “[t]he impartial administration of justice,” which, if “entirely entrusted to the magistracy, a select body of men,” would be subject “frequently [to] an involuntary bias towards those of their own rank and dignity.” 3

From England, the colonists brought the right to a jury trial across the Atlantic. The civil jury played an important role during the colonial era.4 The colonies stoutly resisted the King of England’s efforts to diminish this right, and the Declaration of Independence identified the denial of “the benefits of trial by jury” as one of the grievances that led to the American Revolution.5 Despite this right’s prominence in Colonial America, however, a right to a civil jury trial was not included in the original draft of the Constitution.6

Records of the Philadelphia Convention show that the delegates twice raised the issue of whether the Constitution should include a right to a jury trial. On September 12, 1787, toward the end of the Convention, Hugh Williamson of North Carolina “observed to the House that no provision was yet made for juries in Civil cases and suggested the necessity of it.” 7 Some delegates expressed support for such a provision but observed that the diversity of state courts’ practices in civil trials made it impossible to draft a suitable provision.8 This latter concern appears to have served as the basis for defeating a motion, brought by another delegate on September 15, 1787, to insert a clause in Article III, § 2, to guarantee that “a trial by jury shall be preserved as usual in civil cases.” 9

After the Convention, many opponents of the Constitution’s ratification cited the omission of a right to a jury trial with such “urgency and zeal” that they almost prevented the states from ratifying the Constitution.10 Some opponents of the Constitution claimed that the absence of a provision requiring civil jury trials in a Constitution that mandated jury trials in criminal cases11 implied that the use of a jury was abolished in civil cases.12 In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton refuted this assertion, expressing the view that the Constitution’s silence on civil jury trials merely meant “that the institution [would] remain precisely in the same situation in which it is placed by the State constitutions.” 13

In ratifying the Constitution, several states urged Congress to provide a right to a jury in civil cases as one of the amendments.14 The right was included in the list of amendments James Madison proposed to the First Congress, which adopted the right as one of the Bill of Rights.15 It does not appear that the proposed amendment’s text or meaning was debated during its passage.16 The Seventh Amendment became effective as part of the Bill of Rights in 1791.

Footnotes

1

U.S. Const. amend. VII. The Supreme Court has not held that the Seventh Amendment’s guarantee of the right to a civil trial by jury applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. See Curtis v. Leother, 415 U.S. 189, 192 n.6 (1974); Minneapolis & St. Louis R. Co. v. Bombolis, 241 U.S. 211 (1916). Most state constitutions, however, include this right. See William J. Rich, 2 Modern Constitutional L. § 22:13 (3rd ed.).

2

See Richard S. Arnold, Trial by Jury: the Constitutional Right to a Jury of Twelve in Civil Trials, 22 Hofstra L. Rev. 1, 5–7 (1993).

3

Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 379 (1765–1769).

4

See Arnold, supra note 2, at 13–14.

5

See id. at 14.

6

See id.

7

2 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, at 587 (Max Farrand ed., 1937).

8

Id.

9

Id. at 628.

10

3 Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 1757 (1833). Justice Story observed: “[I]t is a most important and valuable amendment; and places upon the high ground of constitutional right the inestimable privilege of a trial by jury in civil cases, a privilege scarcely inferior to that in criminal cases, which is conceded by all to be essential to political and civil liberty.” Id. § 1762.

11

U.S. Const. art. III, § 2.

12

The Federalist No. 83 (Alexander Hamilton).

13

See id.

14

Jonathan Elliott, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 326 (1836) (New Hampshire); 2 id. at 399–414 (New York); 3 id. at 658 (Virginia).

15

1 Annals of Cong. 436 (1789). “In suits at common law, between man and man, the trial by jury, as one of the best securities to the rights of the people, ought to remain inviolate.” Id.

16

The Annals of Congress note that on August 18, 1787, the House “considered and adopted” the committee version: “In suits at common law, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved.” 1 Annals of Cong. 760 (1789). On September 7, the Senate Journal states that this provision was adopted after insertion of “where the consideration exceeds twenty dollars.” 2 Bernard Schwartz, The Bill of Rights: A Documentary History 1150 (1971).