Opinion ID: 1532391
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Jury Trial Waiver Provision

Text: Petitioners next argue that the arbitration clause is substantively unconscionable because [t]he invocation of the arbitration clause in this case involves the waiver of a fundamental right  the right to trial by jury. The arbitration clause, which petitioners signed, states that [t]he parties acknowledge that they are waiving their right to jury trial by consenting to binding arbitration (emphasis omitted). Petitioners posit that they did not waive their fundamental right to a jury trial in a knowing and voluntary manner. Rather, they were rushed into signing documents that they were given no opportunity to review in advance without any explanation concerning the rights they were waiving. As we shall explain, petitioners contention on this point is unpersuasive. Article 23 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, [9] guarantees the right to a jury trial in civil cases. Although the right to a jury trial is fundamental, parties can contractually waive their right to a jury trial. In order to have a valid waiver of a fundamental right such as the right to a jury trial, however, there ordinarily must exist a knowing and intelligent waiver of the right. See, e.g., Richardson v. State, 381 Md. 348, 366, 849 A.2d 487, 498 (2004) (waiver of Sixth Amendment fundamental right to counsel in criminal proceedings valid if knowing and intelligent); Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Comm'n v. Washington National Arena, 282 Md. 588, 613-14, 386 A.2d 1216, 1233 (1978) (stating that constitutional rights, including the right to procedural due process, may be relinquished by agreement, provided any such waiver is `voluntary, knowing, and intelligently made.') (quoting D.H. Overmyer Co. v. Frick Co., 405 U.S. 174, 185, 92 S.Ct. 775, 782, 31 L.Ed.2d 124 (1972)). Petitioners' bald assertion that they should not be held to have waived their right to a jury trial after they signed the Disclosure Agreement because they did not know that the arbitration clause contained such a waiver is fundamentally lacking in persuasive effect. Because the right to a jury trial attaches in the context of judicial proceedings after it is determined that litigation should proceed before a court ... the `loss of the right to a jury trial is a necessary and fairly obvious consequence of an agreement to arbitrate.' Sydnor v. Conseco Financial Servicing Corp., 252 F.3d 302, 307 (4th Cir.2001) (emphasis added) (quoting Pierson v. Dean, Witter, Reynolds, Inc., 742 F.2d 334, 339 (7th Cir.1984)). Therefore, the loss of one's right to a jury trial is generally implicit in an agreement to arbitrate. [10] That, and more, was made succinctly clear by the intermediate appellate court in Meyer v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co .: An agreement to arbitrate either future or existing disputes involves more than just the waiver of a right to jury trial, although that is certainly implicit in such an agreement. It constitutes an election to use an alternative dispute resolution mechanism that the law not only recognizes but encourages. If appellants' position were correct, the whole foundation of the Federal and uniform arbitration acts could be placed in jeopardy. Arbitration clauses are standard not only in insurance contracts but in construction contracts, employment agreements, and a variety of other contracts that may, in some instances, be regarded as being of adhesion. If the `weaker' party to such contracts were able to escape the duty to arbitrate on the premise that he was unaware of the arbitration clause and therefore had not validly waived his Federal or State Constitutional right to a jury trial, the viability of this favored method of dispute resolution would be significantly circumscribed. Meyer, 85 Md.App. at 91, 582 A.2d at 278-79. On the evening of February 17, 1998, petitioners signed the two-page Disclosure Agreement, which perhaps would have taken ten minutes at most to read. [11] If petitioners did not do so before they signed the agreement, they have no persons to blame but themselves. As expressed earlier in our discussion, we are loath to rescind a conspicuous arbitration agreement that was signed by a party whom now, for whatever reason, does not desire to fulfill that agreement. Other jurisdictions presented with this particular issue have held a waiver of jury trial provision embedded within an arbitration clause can generally only be found to be unenforceable if the waiver provision itself is dubiously inconspicuous in the entire agreement as a whole. See Gaylord Dep't Stores of Alabama, Inc. v. Stephens, 404 So.2d 586, 588 (Ala.1981) (jury trial waiver provision buried in paragraph thirty-four in a contract containing forty-six paragraphs); Fairfield Leasing Corp. v. Techni-Graphics, Inc., 256 N.J.Super. 538, 607 A.2d 703 (Law Div.1992) (holding jury trial waiver unconscionable and unenforceable where the clause was buried in extremely fine print in an adhesion contract, one-half the ordinary size of print, in the midst of many other clauses); see also Jean R. Sternlight, Mandatory Binding Arbitration and the Demise of the Seventh Amendment Right to a Jury Trial, 16 OHIO ST. J. ON DISP. RESOL. 669, 684-85 (2001) (stating that [t]he conspicuousness of the [jury trial waiver] clause depends upon such things as font size, typeface, and placement. Courts are more likely to uphold waivers that are displayed in large typeface, bold, [12] or capital lettering. They are also more likely to uphold waivers that are placed in a key location, such as near the signature line of an agreement ) (alteration added) (emphasis added) (footnote added) (footnotes omitted). Because the jury trial waiver was not presented in the Disclosure Agreement in an inconspicuous manner, as it appeared as part of the underlined and distinct arbitration clause, which was located immediately above petitioners' signatures, and a jury trial waiver is generally implicit in an agreement to arbitrate, we hold that the jury trial waiver did not unfairly usurp the fundamental right to a jury trial from petitioners. An arbitration clause by its most basic nature waives a party's right to have disputes resolved in litigation and creates the right to have them resolved by arbitration.