Opinion ID: 2507315
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Constitutional Right to a Trial

Text: The admission agreements in this case contain arbitration clauses that eliminate a fundamental constitutional right: the right of the parties to have a jury trial in the West Virginia circuit court system on the plaintiffs' personal injury claims against the defendant nursing homes. Put simply, the parties have a fundamental constitutional right to use West Virginia's court system to seek justice. [28] The West Virginia Constitution, Article III, § 17 protects the right of the people to open access to the courts to seek justice, and states: The courts of this State shall be open, and every person, for an injury done to him, in his person, property or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of law; and justice shall be administered without sale, denial or delay. And Article III, § 13 of the Constitution, which preserves the right of the people to a jury trial over any controversy, states: In suits at common law, where the value in controversy exceeds twenty dollars exclusive of interest and costs, the right of trial by jury, if required by either party, shall be preserved; and in such suit in a court of limited jurisdiction a jury shall consist of six persons. No fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any case than according to rule of court or law. These constitutional protections were adopted to ensure impartial and open enforcement of our civil and criminal laws. Justice Starcher, writing for the Court, eloquently identified the founders' motivations for these constitutional provisions: These constitutional rightsof open access to the courts to seek justice, and to trial by juryare fundamental in the State of West Virginia. Our constitutional founders wanted the determinations of what is legally correct and just in our society, and the enforcement of our criminal and civil laws to occur in a system of open, accountable, affordable, publicly supported, and impartial tribunalstribunals that involve, in the case of the jury, members of the general citizenry. These fundamental rights do not exist just for the benefit of individuals who have disputes, but for the benefit of all of us. The constitutional rights to open courts and jury trial serve to sustain the existence of a core social institution and mechanism upon which, it may be said without undue grandiosity, our way of life itself depends. [29] The West Virginia Bill of Rights begins, in Article III, § 1 of the Constitution, with the statement that the Constitution protects certain inherent rights which people cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity. Still, we have recognized that the constitutionally-enshrined and fundamental rights to assert one's claims for justice before a jury in the public court system may be the subject of a legally enforceable waiver. [30] However, Courts indulge every reasonable presumption against waiver of a fundamental constitutional right and will not presume acquiescence in the loss of such fundamental right. [31] In essence, our Constitution recognizes that factual disputes should be decided by juries of lay citizens rather than paid, professional fact-finders (arbitrators) who may be more interested in their fees than the disputes at hand. C.