Seventh Amendment

Seventh Amendment An issue that divided supporters and opponents of the original Constitution was the document's silence on the guarantee of right to trial by jury in civil cases. This question was debated during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, but a proposal to delineate the right in Article III was defeated. Anti‐Federalists seized on this perceived deficiency in their campaign against ratification. Alexander Hamilton responded in The Federalist Papers by denying that the Constitution would limit the right to civil jury trial as it existed at common law. The Seventh Amendment, which was ratified in 1791, resolved the controversy by guaranteeing the right in suits at common law in federal courts where the amount in controversy exceeds twenty dollars.

The Supreme Court has had several recent occasions to interpret the Seventh Amendment. In Colegrove v. Battin (1973), it held that a six‐member jury, as opposed to the traditional twelve‐person panel, does not violate the amendment. The Court has required jury trials when Congress created new causes of action analogous to actions at common law. Since there has been a merger of law and equity in the federal courts, the parties can insist on their right to jury trial on facts relating to the legal aspects of the case. For instance, actions for money damages are usually within the province of the jury. The Supreme Court has refused to hold that the Seventh Amendment is applicable to civil trials in state courts.

Philip L. Merkel