Opinion ID: 2033184
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Comparison Between Federal and Iowa Jury Provisions

Text: The Seventh Amendment states in part that the right of trial by jury shall be preserved.... U.S. Const. amend. VII; see also Fed.R.Civ.P. 38 (The right of trial by jury as declared by the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution or as given by a statute of the United States shall be preserved to the parties inviolate.). Similarly, the Iowa Constitution proclaims: The right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate.... Iowa Const. art. I, § 9. While not identical, both federal and state provisions appear to provide the same general preference for jury trials. Iowa has not made this mandate limitless, however, evidenced by its own civil rules. Issues for which a jury is demanded shall be tried to a jury unless the court finds that there is no right thereto.... Iowa R. Civ. P. 178 (emphasis added). This rule recognizes that in some cases, there is simply no right to a jury. Ordinarily, the Seventh Amendment does not preserve the right to trial by jury in equity actions.... 27A Am.Jur.2d Equity § 234. Likewise, a derivative suit can only be brought in equity because [t]he common law refused ... to permit stockholders to call corporate managers to account in actions at law where a jury would be available. Ross, 396 U.S. at 534, 90 S.Ct. at 736, 24 L.Ed.2d at 733-34. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court found this right did exist in an equitable derivative action where the corporation, if it had been suing in its own right, would have been entitled to a jury. Id. at 532-33, 90 S.Ct. at 735, 24 L.Ed.2d at 733.