Rights to jury trial are important. People in your community will decide a case, rather than a single judge whose factual understanding may be much less than that of a panel of jurors. Lawyers believe, as an article of faith, that jurors award more money than do judges. Tenth Circuit judges decided whether the 39 plaintiffs would have a jury when their case came to trial. The court first looked at the governing statute, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, to figure out what kind of rights the statute created.
Juries hear common-law claims, while judges deal with other claims.
Courts hear claims of two kinds. For centuries, English judges developed common law through decisions. Gradually, as decisions piled up and as Parliament and the king or queen adopted statutes, common law encompassed disputes about contracts, negligence and problems of intentional wrongdoing. As time passed, however, common law became rigid. English subjects appealed to the king, saying that decisions against them, while correct under the common law of the time, were unjust.