Remedies Outline

REMEDIES     
I.          Monday, January 12, 2009
Right to Jury Trial (Federal v. State Approaches)
1317-26
Traditionally designated common-law actions carry a right to jury trial, whereas suits where equity would have taken jurisdiction do not.
Ross v. Bernhard (Federal Approach)
The right to jury trial attaches to those issues in derivative actions as to which the corporation, if it had been suing in its own right, would have been entitled to a jury.
The 7th Amendment entitled parties to a jury trial in actions for damages to a person or property, for libel and slander, for recovery of land, and for conversion of personal property.
A corporation’s suit to enforce a legal right was an action at common law carrying the right to jury trial at the time the Seventh Amendment was adopted.
Equity could properly resolve corporate claims of any kind without a jury when properly pleaded in derivative suits complying with the equity rules. But legal issues in a derivative suit should be tried by a jury.
The right to sue on behalf of a corporation was historically an equitable matter, but legal claims are not magically converted into equitable issues by their presentation to a court of equity in a derivative suit.
Note 2 Chauffeurs, Teamsters & Helpers, Local 391 v. Terry: employees seeking back pay from their union for the latter’s breach of its duty of fair representation were entitled to a jury trial.
1335
Note 4 Equitable Clean-up Doctrine: Once it was determined that equitable jurisdiction over an action existed, the chancellor would decide all aspects of the controversy, both legal and equitable, thereby obviating the need for two proceedings. But the doctrine would be applied only when the legal aspects of the case were subordinate to the equitable issues.
Bacon Theatres expressly overruled this interpretation of the seventh amendment and held that no test utilizing traditional equity procedure could interfere with the right to have a jury determine all the factual issues associated with a legal claim.
1343-53
Weltzin v. Nail (Iowa S. Ct.): No right to a jury trial generally in cases brought in equity. In the absence of statutory provisions to the contrary, in such a suit in state court, the stockholders are not entitled, as a matter of right, to a jury trial.
Finding the fact that the remedy is legal n nature does not automatically take the case out of the purview of the equity court. It was the nature of the case rather than the remedy that tips the balance in favor or against providing a jury. The court found that even though the trust beneficiaries were seeking money damages, a legal remedy, because the case could only be found in equity, there was no right to a jury.
If an action was brought at law, and an equitable defense raised, that would not invoke equity jurisdiction automatically.
Fraudulent misrepresentation is a legal claim. Negligence is a legal claim. Breach of fiduciary duty is an equitable claim. A money judgment in a derivative suit is more appropriately referred to as a judgment for restitution rather than as one for damages.
The national trend agrees with this case and the Ross dissent.
Several courts have denied parties a jury trial reasoning that because a competent jury cannot be impaneled to decide such cases, the due process right to a fair trial is violated if the jury resolves the dispute. Several courts following Ross have concluded that a case complexity may indeed trump the right to jury trial in order to satisfy due process requirements. Factors used to consider complexity are the amount of discovery, length of trial, difficulty of case concepts, intricacy of expert testimony, etc.
Note 1.Where either the underlying cause of action or the remedy sought is traditionally looked upon as equitable, many state courts continue to interpret their state constitutions so as to deny a jury trial.
Specific types of actions held to be equitable in nature: quiet title actions, actions for specific performance, cancellation of a lease, creation of a resulting trust with an accounting, actions to determine the priority of mortgages and other liens, for an accounting, and to impress liens and real estate.
Note 2: Under both Delaware law and California law, entitlement to a jury trial depends on whether an action is legal or equitable. In Delaware, the equity jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery as it existed prior to the separation of the colonies determines whether an action is legal or equitable.
In California, the right to a jury trial is coextensive with that right as it was in1850 under English Common Law. A jury trial must be granted where the gist of the action is legal, where the action is in reality cognizable at law … On the other hand, if the action is essentially one in equity and relief sought depends upon the application of equitable doctrines, the parties are not entitled to a jury trial.
II.         Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Right to Jury Trial (Statutory Causes of Action)
1326-1333
Note 3: When Congress makes new causes of action, it sometimes mandates a right to a jury trial. Usually, however, when the legislation says nothing about the right to jury trial, the S. Ct. looks for historical analogies to the statutory cause of action in existence at the time of the Seventh Amendments adoption. 
            Feltner v. Columbia Pictures: because copyright suits for damages were triable to juries at the time the seventh amendment was adopted, there is a constitutional right to jury trial in statutory damages actions for copyright infringement.
The 7th Amendment does apply to actions enforcing statutory rights, and requires a jury trial upon demand, if the statute creates legal rights and remedies, enforceable in an action for damages in the ordinary courts of law.
NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp: the 7th Amendment is generally inapplicable in administrative proceedings, where jury trials would be incompatible with the whole concept of administrative adjudication. It upholds Congressional power to entrust enforcement of statutory rights to an administrative proves or specialized court of equity free from the strictures of the 7th Amendment.
A jury trial is not required in an action for reinstatement and back pay.
Note 4. The Civil Rights Act of 191 specifically provided for a right to jury trial. By contrast 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is silent on the question of whether there is a right to jury trial in constitutional tort actions.
Santiago-Negron v. Castro-Davila: If the remedy sought is injunctive relief and/or back pay, no jury trial attaches. In the ordinary case, if the relief sought includes compensatory and/or punitive damages, then there does exist a right to trial by jury.
Backpay is characterized as either equitable or as a legal remedy incidental to an equitable cause of action, and accordingly not sufficient to create a right to a jury trial.
In tort actions for personal injury tried to a jury, lost wages are invariably treated as being part of compensatory damages. The determination of back pay as a factor of compensatory damages involves the substance of a common-law right to a trial by jury.
City of Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes at Monterey, Ltd: the issue of whether a landowner has been deprived of all economically viable use of his property is a predominantly factual question that is for the jury.
1353-56
Note 3. Declaratory judgment actions did not exist at common law. Courts have had to determine whether the remedy was sought as a substitute for a remedy traditionally available only in an action at law or bill in equity. Declaratory judgment will be characterized as legal if, but only if, it appears from the facts that legal type relief would be possible at the time of the law suit.
Kann v. Kann: declaratory judgment actions to determine rights and obligations of parties under trust does not require a jury trial because this use of declaratory judgment was analogous historically to equity jurisdiction over administration of trusts.
Right to Jury (Counter claims)
1336-40
Amoco Oil Co v. Torcomian (3rd Cir.):
Neither joinder of an equitable claim with a legal claim nor joinder of a prayer for equitable relief with a claim for legal relief as to a legal claim can defeat an otherwise valid seventh amendment right to a jury trial.
The complaint sought ejectment, a form of