Opinion ID: 1997204
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Constitutional Considerations Touching upon the Right to a Jury Trial

Text: Our present rules of civil procedure, like the statutory provisions that preceded them, should be construed so as to preserve inviolate the right to a jury trial as it existed at common law, though the rules should neither extend nor diminish that right. See Bendick, 558 A.2d at 944; In re Advisory Opinion to the Senate, 108 R.I. 628, 634, 278 A.2d 852, 855 (1971); Dyer v. Keefe, 97 R.I. 418, 420, 198 A.2d 159, 160 (1964). To this end, it is useful to review the underlying constitutional tenets that spawned the Sasso rule of practice to more clearly appreciate the interplay between the constitutional guarantee to trial by jury and the Sasso rule of practice. Although Rhode Island is not constrained by the mandate of the Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution, article I, section 15, of the constitution of this state guarantees that Ube right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate. Bendick, 558 A.2d at 943 (quoting Briggs Drive, Inc. v. Moorehead, 103 R.I. 555, 557, 239 A.2d 186, 187 (1968)); In re Advisory Opinion to the Senate, 108 R.I. at 632, 278 A.2d at 854 (Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution not applicable to trials in state courts). Rule 38(a) of the Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure echoes this constitutional guarantee, declaring: The right of trial by jury as declared in Article I, Section 15 of the constitution of this state or as given by a statute shall be preserved to the parties inviolate. Rule 38 implements this constitutional guarantee by allowing a party in a civil action to demand a jury trial on all issues so triable or to specify certain issues which the party wishes so tried. Super.R.Civ.P. 38(c); Rowell, 103 R.I. at 67-68, 235 A.2d at 95-96 (discussing parameters of rule). The constitutional right to have issues of fact determined by a jury is preserved as it existed at common law at the time of the adoption of our original constitution in 1842, which became operative on May 2, 1843. See In re McCloud, 110 R.I. 431, 435, 293 A.2d 512, 515 (1972); Mathewson v. Ham 21 R.I. 311, 314, 43 A. 848, 849 (1899), overruled in part with respect to criminal trials, State v. Holliday, 109 R.I. 93, 104 n. 2, 280 A.2d 333, 339 n. 2 (1971). Bendick, decided three years after the 1986 adoption of our revised Constitution, teaches that this court, when analyzing the right to jury trial under our modern constitution, will continue to look to common-law forms of action as they existed when Rhode Island's original Constitution was promulgated in the early 1840s. [6] See Bendick, 558 A.2d at 944. Although our modern rules of civil procedure merged law and equity and abolished their separate forms of action, historical distinctions between actions at law and suits in equity remain relevant for the purpose of determining the right to a jury trial. Rowell, 103 R.I. at 67, 235 A.2d at 96. Thus, in assessing whether a particular cause of action merits a jury trial, we look to the historical nature of the claim, tracing its origins and striving to discern analogies to forms of action known to the common law before the merger of law and equity. Bendick, 558 A.2d at 944. In so doing, this court has followed a course substantially parallel to that of the United States Supreme Court in Dairy Queen, Inc. v. Wood, 369 U.S. 469, 82 S.Ct. 894, 8 L.Ed.2d 44 (1962), and Beacon Theatres, Int. v. Westover, 359 U.S. 500, 79 S.Ct. 948, 3 L.Ed.2d 988 (1959), although we take a more distinctly historical approach to such questions. Bendick, 558 A.2d at 944. In Rowell the court addressed a bill in equity brought before the new rules of civil procedure had been adopted but tried after the effective date of the new rules. The complaint had been amended to conform to the new rules and alleged that certain mortgage agreements were unconscionable and usurious. The complaint sought cancellation and recision of the notes and an injunction restraining foreclosure but it also sought monetary damages on an action at law for usury. Rowell, 103 R.I. 60, 235 A.2d 91. Considering whether the plaintiff was entitled to a jury trial, the Rowell court stated that when a complaint presents claims sounding both in equity and law, the fact that the claims must now be brought in a single action in a single court rather than separately in a court of law and a court of equity in no way affects [the litigant's] right to a jury trial. Id. at 68, 235 A.2d at 96. In reaching this conclusion the court expressly followed the Supreme Court's reasoning in the Dairy Queen case. There the Supreme Court indicated that in light of the single form of action created by the federal rules and the strong preference for protecting the right to jury trial, a federal court faced with both equitable and legal claims and with factual issues common to both must determine any legal claims prior to any final court determination of    equitable claims. Dairy Queen, 369 U.S. at 479, 82 S.Ct. at 901, 8 L.Ed.2d at 52 (discussing Beacon Theatres ). Thus we construe the court's decision in Rowell as affording a similar prioritization to legal claims in our own state constitutional jurisprudence. [7] And although the Rowell court ultimately refused a jury trial in that case because the complaint failed to allege all the requisite elements of the legal claim, Rowell clearly established the general rule that when a civil action comprises both legal and equitable claims, the legal claims, if adequately presented, must first be presented to a jury. Although this is not a case in which plaintiffs were forced to bring separate legal and equitable claims together in one post-merger proceeding, the constitutional right to jury trial is likewise implicated in this case. The Sasso rule of practice, in seeking to promote the use of a jury to resolve disputed factual issues when [t]he rights sought to be determined and enforced are essentially legal, as distinguished from equitable rights, Sasso, 98 R.I. at 490, 204 A.2d at 825, requires the Superior Court to submit to a jury any claims that could have been litigated in an action at law in 1843, even if the court is also asked to provide equitable relief in the first instance and then permanently after a trial. And this is so even if the entire action could have been brought before the pm-merger equity court. [8] Therefore, if it can be demonstrated that a claim for contract interference requesting money damages was cognizable at law in 1843, the Sasso rule would require the trial court to submit the disputed factual underpinnings of such a claim to a jury regardless of the fact that the plaintiffs here sought substantial equitable relief which would have allowed them access to the premerger equity court as well as the law court. [9]