Constitution

The Seventh Amendment: Jury Trial in Civil Cases

The Seventh Amendment preserves the right to a jury in civil suits at common law over twenty dollars and limits re-examination of jury findings.

4Conservative Editors · Published November 8, 2026

The 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.

In plain English

The jury right. In "Suits at common law" where more than twenty dollars is at stake, "the right of trial by jury shall be preserved." The word "preserved" means the Amendment protects the jury right as it existed in 1791. Suits "at common law" were those that English law courts heard, as distinct from equity and admiralty cases, which had no jury.

The twenty-dollar figure. The amount has never been adjusted. Courts have treated it as a threshold meaning that most ordinary suits for money damages carry a jury right.

The re-examination clause. "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." A judge cannot overrule a jury's factual findings whenever he disagrees; review is limited to the narrow grounds the common law allowed.

The Amendment applies to federal courts. The Supreme Court has not applied it to the states.

What the Founders said

The absence of a civil jury guarantee was one of the Anti-Federalists' most effective complaints. Article III provides for criminal juries only. Hamilton's Federalist No. 83 responded at length, arguing that the diversity of state practice made a single rule hard to write, and that the omission did not abolish the civil jury. He defended the jury as an institution while arguing the Constitution need not fix its rules.

The Federal Farmer and others answered that the silence invited judges to try cases without juries. Many ratifying conventions asked for an amendment, and the Seventh Amendment resulted. Madison's draft in 1789 resolved the issue, and Congress adopted it as part of the Bill of Rights.

The reference to the "rules of the common law" ties the Amendment to the English system as it stood in 1791, with its distinction between law and equity.

How the courts have read it

  • Parsons v. Bedford (1830): "Suits at common law" refers to suits in which legal rights were determined, in contrast to equity and admiralty.
  • Dimick v. Schiedt (1935): a trial judge's power to increase a jury's damages award, even with the defendant's consent, was unconstitutional.
  • Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad Co. v. Bombolis (1916): the Seventh Amendment does not apply to state courts.
  • Curtis v. Loether (1974): the right to a jury applies to statutory claims that are legal in nature.
  • Tull v. United States (1987): a defendant sued by the government for civil penalties under the Clean Water Act had a right to a jury on liability.
  • Granfinanciera, S.A. v. Nordberg (1989): the Seventh Amendment limits Congress's ability to assign legal claims to non-jury tribunals.
  • SEC v. Jarkesy (2024): when the SEC seeks civil penalties for securities fraud, the Seventh Amendment entitles the defendant to a jury trial in federal court.

Why it matters now

The Seventh Amendment is a quiet limit on the administrative state. Federal agencies increasingly act as prosecutor, judge and appellate court in a single proceeding, imposing money penalties without a jury. Jarkesy, decided in 2024, held that this is not permitted when the claim resembles a common-law action. The decision has opened questions about how many other agency proceedings may need to be rethought.

The jury is also the people's role in the machinery of justice. A jury of citizens can decline to apply a law unfairly, and it brings community judgment to the facts. Conservatives who favor limited government and local control have reason to value it. Reform proposals that would limit or replace juries in civil cases, whether for cost or speed, should answer the argument that a right preserved by the Constitution cannot be traded away lightly.

The twenty-dollar threshold has been unchanged since 1791. Its very oddness is a small illustration of how a legal text can carry a value across centuries.

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