Court Opinion

ID: 8916449
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-27 05:15:55.772842+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:09:02.181321
License: Public Domain

REINHARDT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from Section III A of the majority’s opinion holding that the defendants forfeited their right to a jury trial. I do not believe that Rules 38 and 39 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure contemplate that one party to the litigation shall have an exclusive continuing option to determine whether a trial shall be by court or jury merely because the other side vigorously contended at one point that a court trial was mandatory. In my opinion, far more is required before we can declare that a party has waived its right to a jury trial. To create an implied waiver from defendants’ conduct here denigrates the principle that every reasonable presumption be indulged against the waiver of a right to trial by jury. Pradier v. Elespuru, 641 F.2d 808, 811 (9th Cir.1981).
One problem with the majority’s conclusion is that it ignores the practicalities of litigation. Whether or not a party desires a jury trial may well depend on what the specific alternative is. Judges are not fungible commodities. One side may prefer a trial before a particular judge to a trial by jury. For the very same reasons, the other side may not. When conditions change and a new judge is assigned to preside over the trial the views of both sides may change, as *1308they did here. A party that initially insisted that a jury trial was essential to the very survival of our system of justice may suddenly decide that a trial before a judge is by far the wiser course. The opposing parties, having previously proclaimed vigorously that there was no right to a jury trial, may just as suddenly conclude that a trial by jury is a precious heritage which they have a constitutional right to invoke. There is nothing mystifying or surprising about such tactical changes by the parties. However, the underlying principle that overrides what is good or bad for a particular side at a particular time is the right to trial by jury. That right was just as important when defendants asserted it shortly before trial as it was when plaintiff successfully invoked it at the commencement of the proceedings.
Once a jury trial is demanded by one party in a timely manner, all parties have a continuing right to insist on a jury trial and to object to any attempted waiver by the party that originally invoked the right; the parties are also free to change their respective positions regarding a jury trial, as the two sides did here. It is clear to me that defendants had no intention of waiving all of their rights under Rule 38(d) and 39(a), and I do not believe that asserting a position that plaintiff was not entitled to a jury trial is conduct that should be held to constitute an unintended waiver.
Merely because defendants argued at an early stage in the litigation that plaintiff did not have a right to a jury trial does not in any way suggest that, if the court concluded they were wrong, defendants would be willing to waive their continuing right to object to a subsequent change in position by plaintiff. Certainly, there would be no reason for defendants to give up their right to change their own position if circumstances changed. From defendants’ standpoint, the implied waiver suggested by the majority served no purpose, other than to put the plaintiff in the position the majority finds it was in — having exclusive control over the decision whether the trial would be by jury or by court, with the right to make that final unilateral decision based on the circumstances that existed just prior to the time of trial. I see no reason why objecting to an opponent’s jury demand, whatever the basis for the objection, should entail such a consequence.
The majority’s assertion that defendants were not relying on plaintiff’s jury demand since they initially opposed it seems to me to be only partially correct. It is true that, as the majority says, that defendants did not initially rely on that demand in order to secure a jury trial. Defendants did, however, rely from the outset on the Rules that provide that once a demand is made, it cannot be withdrawn unilaterally. That reliance was, in my opinion, justified.
I do not believe that this is a case involving “technical requirements” or “formalistic defects,” nor that the admonition of Rule 1 regarding “speedy and inexpensive determination of every action” provides a justification for dispensing with the right to trial by jury. While I understand the majority’s reluctance to undo the results of a substantial investment of judicial time and resources, and to reward the defendants for their belated conversion to a belief in the sanctity of trial by jury, I believe that defendants were entitled under the Rules to insist on a jury trial, that they did not waive their right to trial by jury, and that a court verdict cannot stand.