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.

One of the primary purposes of the Seventh Amendment was to preserve the historic line separating the province of the jury from that of the judge, without preventing procedural innovations that respect this boundary. In defining this line, the Supreme Court has concluded that it is constitutional for a federal judge, in the course of trial, to: (1) express his opinion upon the facts, provided that all questions of fact are ultimately submitted to the jury;1 (2) call the jury’s attention to parts of the evidence that he or she deems of special importance,2 being careful to distinguish between matters of law and matters of opinion;3 (3) inform the jury, when there is insufficient evidence to justify a verdict;4 (4) require a jury to answer specific interrogatories in addition to rendering a general verdict;5 (5) direct the jury, after the plaintiff’s case is complete, to return a verdict for the defendant on the ground of the insufficiency of the evidence;6 (6) set aside a verdict that is against the law or the evidence and order a new trial;7 and (7) refuse the defendant a new trial on the condition, accepted by plaintiff, that the plaintiff remit a portion of the damages awarded him.8

In International Terminal Operating Co. v. N.V. Nederl. Amerik Stoomv. Maats., however, the Supreme Court held that an appellate court erred in reversing a jury’s finding on the issue of the reasonableness of a stevedoring company’s conduct in failing to avert an injury to one of its employees.9 The Court of Appeals found that the stevedore acted unreasonably as a matter of law, but the Supreme Court held that, “[u]nder the Seventh Amendment, that issue should have been left to the jury’s determination.” 10

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court has noted: “In numerous contexts, gatekeeping judicial determinations prevent submission of claims to a jury’s judgment without violating the Seventh Amendment.” 11 For example, in order to screen out frivolous complaints or defenses, Congress “has power to prescribe what must be pleaded to state the claim, just as it has the power to determine what must be proved to prevail on the merits.” 12 It is, the Supreme Court observed, “the federal lawmaker’s prerogative . . . to allow, disallow, or shape the contours of-including the pleading and proof requirements for-[ ] private actions.” 13

Footnotes

1

Vicksburg & Meridian R.R. v. Putnam, 118 U.S. 545, 553 (1886); United States v. Phila. & Reading R.R., 123 U.S. 113, 114 (1887). But see Quercia v. United States, 289 U.S. 466, 700 (1933) (holding that the trial judge exceeded “the bounds of fair comment” when he told the jury, referring to the defendant, that ' “wiping’ one’s hands while testifying was ‘almost always an indication of lying’” ; in doing so, the trial judge impermissibly added to the evidence and “put his own experience, with all the weight that could be attached to it, in the scale against the accused” ).

2

Vicksburg & Meridian R.R., 118 U.S. 545 (citing Carver v. Jackson, 29 U.S. (4 Pet.) 1, 80 (1830); Magniac v. Thompson, 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 348, 390 (1833); Mitchell v. Harmony, 54 U.S. (13 How.) 115, 131 (1852); Transp. Line v. Hope, 95 U.S. 297, 302 (1877)).

3

Games v. Dunn, 39 U.S. (14 Pet.) 322, 327 (1840).

4

Sparf & Hansen v. United States, 156 U.S. 51, 99–100 (1895); Pleasants v. Fant, 89 U.S. (22 Wall.) 116, 121 (1875); Randall v. Balt. & Ohio R.R., 109 U.S. 478, 482 (1883); Meehan v. Valentine, 145 U.S. 611, 625 (1892); Coughran v. Bigelow, 164 U.S. 301 (1896).

5

Walker v. N.M. So. Pac. R.R., 165 U.S. 593, 598 (1897).

6

Treat Mfg. Co. v. Standard Steel & Iron Co., 157 U.S. 674 (1895); Randall, 109 U.S. at 482.

7

Cap. Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U.S. 1, 13 (1899).

8

Ark. Cattle Co. v. Mann, 130 U.S. 69, 74 (1889). A federal judge, however, may not deny the plaintiff a new trial on the condition that the defendant consent to an increase of the damage award. Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U.S. 474, 476–78 (1935).

9

393 U.S. 74, 75 (1968) (per curiam).

10

Id. But see Neely v. Martin K. Eby Constr. Co., 386 U.S. 317, 322 (1967) (holding held that the Seventh Amendment does not bar an appellate court from granting a judgment notwithstanding the verdict insofar as “there is no greater restriction on the province of the jury when an appellate court enters judgment [notwithstanding the verdict] than when a trial court does.” A federal appellate court may also review a district court’s denial of a motion to set aside an award as excessive under an abuse of discretion standard. Gasperini v. Ctr. for Humanities, Inc., 518 U.S. 415 (1996) (holding that a New York law that requires appellate courts to order a new trial when a jury award “deviates materially from what would be reasonable compensation” may be applied by a federal district court exercising diversity jurisdiction, “with appellate control of the trial court’s ruling limited to review for ‘abuse of discretion’” ).

11

Tellabs, Inc. v. Makor Issues & Rights, Ltd., 551 U.S. 308, 327 n.8 (2007).

12

Id. at 327.

13

Id. at 327–28 (explaining that a “heightened pleading rule simply ‘prescribes the means of making an issue,’ and . . . when '[t]he issue [is] made as prescribed, the right of trial by jury accrues.’” (quoting Fid. & Deposit Co. of Md. v. United States, 187 U.S. 315, 320 (1902))).