Opinion ID: 3033797
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Seventh Amendment and Due Process Claims

Text: The tobacco companies also raise a novel claim under the Seventh Amendment. They note that they face litigation in state and federal courts. They argue that because the advertisements publicly disparage the reputation and character of the tobacco industry, their right to receive a jury trial under the Seventh Amendment has been infringed because potential future jurors in potential future trials could be biased by the advertising. They do not, however, allege that any actual trial in which they have participated was rendered unconstitutionally unfair by the challenged advertisements. There are a number of problems with this argument. The companies cite only to cases involving a criminal defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to jury trial in criminal cases or to interpretations of the procedural rules governing the federal courts, and not to any case suggesting that they have an independent Seventh or Fourteenth Amendment right to be free of disparaging state speech before a civil trial. Moreover, as the district court noted, the Seventh Amendment’s guarantee of the right to a civil trial by jury does not apply to the states and was not incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment. See Dohany v. Rogers, 281 U.S. 363, 369 (1930); Walker v. Sauvinet, 92 U.S. 90, 92 (1875). Therefore, whether parties may raise claims against state officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for Seventh Amendment violations is questionable. [9] We need not consider these issues, however. Even assuming that the tobacco companies may properly allege a 12928 R.J. REYNOLDS TOBACCO CO. v. SHEWRY violation of Seventh or Fourteenth Amendment rights due to juror bias created by these advertisements, the proper context for raising such issues is an actual jury trial where a court could consider whether real jurors actually have been biased. Allegations of juror bias are traditionally resolved by the court conducting the trial, not courts considering hypothetical future proceedings. See Smith v. Phillips, 455 U.S. 209, 217 (1982) (“Due process means a jury capable and willing to decide the case solely on the evidence before it, and a trial judge ever watchful to prevent prejudicial occurrences and to determine the effect of such occurrences when they happen. Such determinations may properly be made at a hearing [conducted by the trial court].”). None of the cases cited by the companies supports their asserted right to be free from negative publicity because potential jurors may be prejudiced in potential cases, and we are aware of no case that supports their claim that this court should enjoin certain speech in order to protect the alleged injury occurring in another court. The tobacco companies do not allege the elements of stigmatization that would violate their due process rights. Cf. Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U.S. 433, 436 (1971) (establishing that stigma can change a person’s legal status and therefore constitute a violation of due process). The companies cannot meet the requirements of the “stigma-plus” test established in Paul v. Davis, where the Supreme Court explained that in addition to reputational harm, a due process stigma claim must assert that a recognized liberty or property right, as secured by the due process clauses, has been violated. 424 U.S. 693, 701 (1976); see also WMX Tech., Inc. v. Miller, 197 F.3d 367, 374 (9th Cir. 1999) (“[R]eputation, without more, is not a protected constitutional interest.”). The companies assert that the alleged deprivation of their right to a fair jury trial is sufficient to meet the stigma-plus test. In essence, the companies are trying to bootstrap two arguments about reputational harm to create a single claim — arguing that the reputational harm creates juror bias, and that the juror bias combined with reputational harm creates a constitution- R.J. REYNOLDS TOBACCO CO. v. SHEWRY 12929 ally improper stigma. We reject such an attempt at bootstrapping. See Paul, 424 U.S. at 712 (“[P]etitioners’ defamatory publications, however seriously they may have harmed respondent’s reputation, did not deprive him of any ‘liberty’ or ‘property’ interests protected by the Due Process Clause.”).