Court Opinion

ID: 9427405
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:20:36.481793+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:06.824489
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Rehnquist,
dissenting.
It is admittedly difficult to be outraged about the treatment accorded by the federal judiciary to petitioners’ demand for a jury trial in this lawsuit. Outrage is an emotion all but *338impossible to generate with respeet to a corporate defendant in a securities fraud action, and this case is no exception. But the nagging sense of unfairness as to the way petitioners have been treated, engendered by the imprimatur placed by . the Court of Appeals on respondent’s “heads I win, tails you lose” theory of this litigation, is not dispelled by this Court’s antiseptic analysis of the issues in the case. It may be that if this Nation were to adopt a new Constitution today, the Seventh Amendment guaranteeing the right of jury trial in civil cases in federal courts would not be included among its provisions. But any present sentiment to that effect cannot obscure or dilute our obligation to enforce the Seventh Amendment, which was included in the Bill of Rights in 1791 and which has not since been repealed in the only manner provided by the Constitution for repeal of its provisions.
The right of trial by jury in civil cases at common law is fundamental to our history and jurisprudence. Today, however, the Court reduces this valued right, which Blackstone praised as “the glory of the English law,” to a mere “neutral” *339factor and in the name of procedural reform denies the right of jury trial to defendants in a vast number of cases in which defendants, heretofore, have enjoyed jury trials. Over 35 years ago, Mr. Justice Black lamented the “gradual process of judicial erosion which in one-hundred-fifty years has slowly worn away a major portion of the essential guarantee of the Seventh Amendment.” Galloway v. United States, 319 U. S. 372, 397 (1943) (dissenting opinion). Regrettably, the erosive process continues apace with today’s decision.1
I
The Seventh Amendment provides:
“In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.”
The history of the Seventh Amendment has been amply documented by this Court and by legal scholars,2 and it would serve no useful purpose to attempt here to repeat all that has been written on the subject. Nonetheless, the decision of this case turns on the scope and effect of the Seventh Amendment, which, perhaps more than with any other provision of the Constitution, are determined by reference to the historical *340setting in which the Amendment was adopted. See Colgrove v. Battin, 413 U. S. 149, 152 (1973). It therefore is appropriate to pause to review, albeit briefly, the circumstances preceding and attending the adoption of the Seventh Amendment as a guide in ascertaining its application to the case at hand.
A
It is perhaps easy to forget, now more than 200 years removed from the events, that the right of trial by jury was held in such esteem by the colonists that its deprivation at the hands of the English was one of the important grievances leading to the break with England. See Sources and Documents Illustrating the American Revolution 1764-1788 and the Formation of the Federal Constitution 94 (S. Morison 2d ed. 1929); R. Pound, The Development of Constitutional Guarantees of Liberty 69-72 (1957); C. Ubbelohde, The Vice-Admiralty Courts and the American Revolution 208-211 (1960). The extensive use of vice-admiralty courts by colonial administrators to eliminate the colonists’ right of jury trial was listed among the specific offensive English acts denounced in the Declaration of Independence.3 And after *341war had broken out, all of the 13 newly formed States restored the institution of civil jury trial to its prior prominence; 10 expressly guaranteed the right in their state constitutions and the 3 others recognized it by statute or by common practice.4 Indeed, “[t]he right to trial by jury was probably the only one universally secured by the first American state constitutions . . . L. Levy, Legacy of Suppression: Freedom of Speech and Press in Early American History 281 (1960).5
One might justly wonder then why no mention of the right of jury trial in civil cases should have found its way into the Constitution that emerged from the Philadelphia Convention in 1787. Article III, § 2, cl. 3, merely provides that “The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury.” The omission of a clause protective of the civil jury right was not for lack of trying, however. Messrs. Pinckney and Gerry proposed to provide a clause securing the right of jury trial in civil cases, but their efforts failed.6 Several rea*342sons have been advanced for this failure. The Federalists argued that the practice of civil juries among the several States varied so much that it was too difficult to draft constitutional language to accommodate the different state practices. See Colgrove v. Battin, supra, at 153.7 Whatever the reason for the omission, however, it is clear that even before the delegates had left Philadelphia, plans were under way to attack the proposed Constitution on the ground that it failed to contain a guarantee of civil jury trial in the new federal courts. See R. Rutland, George Mason 91 (1961); Wolfram 662.
The virtually complete absence of a bill of rights in the proposed Constitution was the principal focus of the Anti-Federalists’ attack on the Constitution, and the lack of a provision for civil juries featured prominently in their arguments. See Parsons v. Bedford, 3 Pet. 433, 445 (1830). Their pleas struck a responsive chord in the populace, and the price exacted in many States for approval of the Constitution was the appending of a list of recommended amendments, chief among them a clause securing the right of jury trial in civil cases.8 Responding to the pressures for a civil jury *343guarantee generated during the ratification debates, the first Congress under the new Constitution at its first session in 1789 proposed to amend the Constitution by adding the following language: “In suits at common law, between man and man, the trial by jury, as one of the best securities to the rights of the people, ought to remain inviolate.” 1 Annals of Cong. 435 (1789). That provision, altered in language to what became the Seventh Amendment, was proposed by the Congress in 1789 to the legislatures of the several States and became effective with its ratification by Virginia on December 15, 1791.9
The foregoing sketch is meant to suggest what many of those who oppose the use of juries in civil trials seem to ignore. The founders of our Nation considered the right of trial by jury in civil cases an important bulwark against tyranny and corruption, a safeguard too precious to be left to the whim of the sovereign, or, it might be added, to that of the judiciary.10 Those who passionately advocated the right to a civil jury trial did not do so because they considered the jury a familiar procedural device that should be continued; the concerns for the institution of jury trial that led to the passages of the Declaration of Independence and to the Seventh Amendment were not animated by a belief that use of juries would lead to more efficient judicial administration. Trial by a jury of laymen rather than by the sovereign’s judges *344was important to the founders because juries represent' the layman’s common sense, the “passional elements in our nature,” and thus keep the administration of law in accord with the wishes and feelings of the community. 0. Holmes, Collected Legal Papers 237 (1920). Those who favored juries •believed that a jury would reach a result that a judge either could not or would not reach.11 It is with these values that underlie the Seventh Amendment in mind that the Court should, but obviously does not, approach the decision of this case.
B
The Seventh Amendment requires that the right of trial by jury be “preserved.” Because the Seventh Amendment demands preservation of the jury trial right, our cases have uniformly held that the content of the right must be judged by historical standards. E. g., Curtis v. Loether, 415 U. S. 189, 193 (1974); Colgrove v. Battin, 413 U. S., at 155-156; Ross v. Bernhard, 396 U. S. 531, 533 (1970); Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U. S. 1, 8-9 (1899); Parsons v. Bedford, supra, at 446. Thus, in Baltimore & Carolina Line v. Redman, 295 U. S. 654, 657 (1935), the Court stated that “[t]he right of trial by jury thus preserved is the right which existed under the English common law when the Amendment was adopted.” *345And in Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U. S. 474, 476 (1935), the Court held: “In order to ascertain the scope and meaning of the Seventh Amendment, resort must be had to the appropriate rules of the common law established at the time of the adoption of that constitutional provision in 1791.”12 If a jury would have been impaneled in a particular kind of case in 1791, then the Seventh Amendment requires a jury trial today, if either party so desires.
To be sure, it is the substance of the right of jury trial that is preserved, not the incidental or collateral effects of common-law practice in 1791. Walker v. New Mexico & S. P. R. Co., 165 U. S. 593, 596 (1897). “The aim of the Amendment, as this Court has held, is to preserve the substance of the common-law right of trial by jury, as distinguished from mere matters of form or procedure, and particularly to retain the common-law distinction between the province of the court and that of the jury. . . Baltimore & Carolina Line v. Redman, supra, at 657. Accord, Colgrove v. Battin, supra, at 156-157; Gasoline Products Co. v. Champlin Refining Co., 283 U. S. 494, 498 (1931); Ex parte Peterson, 253 U S. 300, 309 (1920). “The Amendment did not bind the federal courts to the exact procedural incidents or details of jury trial according to the common law of 1791, any more than it tied them to the common-law system of pleading or the specific rules of evidence then prevailing.” Galloway v. United States, 319 U. S., at 390.
To say that the Seventh Amendment does not tie federal courts to the exact procedure of the common law in 1791 does *346not imply, however, that any nominally “procedural’' change can be implemented, regardless of its impact on the functions of the jury. For to sanction creation of procedural devices which limit the province of the jury to a greater degree than permitted at common law in 1791 is in direct contravention of the Seventh Amendment. See Neely v. Martin K. Eby Constr. Co., 386 U. S. 317, 322 (1967); Galloway v. United States, supra, at 396; Dimick v. Schiedt, supra, at 487; Ex parte Peterson, supra, at 309-310. And since we deal here not with the common law qua common law but with the Constitution, no amount of argument that the device provides for more efficiency or more accuracy or is fairer will save it if the degree of invasion of the jury’s province is greater than allowed in 1791. To rule otherwise would effectively permit-judicial repeal of the Seventh Amendment because nearly any change in the province of the jury, no matter how drastic the diminution of its functions, can always be denominated “procedural reform.”
The guarantees of the Seventh Amendment will prove burdensome in some instances; the civil jury surely was a burden to the English governors who, in its stead, substituted the vice-admiralty court. But, as with other provisions of the Bill of Rights, the onerous nature of the protection is no license for contracting the rights secured by the Amendment. Because [m] aintenance of the jury as a fact-finding body is of such importance and occupies so firm a place in our history and jurisprudence . . . any seeming curtailment of the right to a jury trial should be scrutinized with the utmost care.’ ” Dimick v. Schiedt, supra, at 486, quoted in Beacon Theatres, Inc. v. Westover, 359 U. S. 500, 501 (1959).
C
Judged by the foregoing principles, I think it is clear that petitioners were denied their Seventh Amendment right to a *347jury trial in this case. Neither respondent nor the Court doubts that at common law as it existed in 1791, petitioners would have been entitled in the private action to have a jury determine whether the proxy statement was false and misleading in the respects alleged. The reason is that at common law in 1791, collateral estoppel was permitted only where the parties in the first action were identical to, or in privity with, the parties to the subsequent action.13 It was not until 1971 that the doctrine of mutuality was abrogated by this Court in certain limited circumstances. Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation, 402 U. S. 313.14 But developments in the judge-made doctrine of collateral estoppel, however salutary, cannot, consistent with the Seventh Amendment, contract in any material fashion the right to a jury trial that a defendant would have enjoyed in 1791. In the instant case, resort to the doctrine of collateral estoppel does more than merely contract the right to a jury trial: It eliminates the right entirely and therefore contravenes the Seventh Amendment.
The Court responds, however, that at common law “a litigant was not entitled to have a jury [in a subsequent action at law between the same parties] determine issues that had been previously adjudicated by a chancellor in equity,” and that “petitioners have advanced no persuasive reason . . . why the meaning of the Seventh Amendment should depend on *348whether or not mutuality of parties is present.” Ante, at 333, 335. But that is tantamount to saying that since a party would not be entitled to a jury trial if he brought an equitable action, there is no persuasive reason why he should receive a jury trial on virtually the same issues if instead he chooses to bring his lawsuit in the nature of a legal action. The persuasive reason is that the Seventh Amendment requires that a party’s right to jury trial which existed at common law be “preserved” from incursions by the government or the judiciary. Whether this Court believes that use of a jury trial in a particular instance is necessary, or fair or repetitive is simply irrelevant. If that view is “rigid,” it is the Constitution which commands that rigidity. To hold otherwise is to rewrite the Seventh Amendment so that a party is guaranteed a jury trial in civil cases unless this Court thinks that a jury trial would be inappropriate.
No doubt parallel “procedural reforms” could be instituted in the area of criminal jurisprudence, which would accomplish much the same sort of expedition of court calendars and conservation of judicial resources as would the extension of collateral estoppel in civil litigation. Government motions for summary judgment, or for a directed verdict in favor of the prosecution at the close of the evidence, would presumably save countless hours of judges’ and jurors’ time. It can scarcely be doubted, though, that such “procedural reforms” would not survive constitutional scrutiny under the jury trial guarantee of the Sixth Amendment. Just as the principle of separation of powers was not incorporated by the Framers into the Constitution in order to promote efficiency or dispatch in the business of government, the right to a jury trial was not guaranteed in order to facilitate prompt and accurate decision of lawsuits. The essence of that right lies in its insistence that a body of laymen not permanently attached to the sovereign participate along with the judge in the fact-*349finding necessitated by a lawsuit. And that essence is as much a part of the Seventh Amendment’s guarantee in civil cases as it is of the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee in criminal prosecutions. Cf. Thiel v. Southern Pacific Co., 328 U. S. 217, 220 (1946).
Relying on Galloway v. United States, Gasoline Products Co. v. Champlin Refining Co., and Fidelity & Deposit Co. v. United States, 187 U. S. 315 (1902), the Court seems to suggest that the offensive use of collateral estoppel in this case is permissible under the limited principle set forth above that a mere procedural change that does not invade the province of the jury and a defendant’s right thereto to a greater extent than authorized by the common law is permissible. But the Court’s actions today constitute a far greater infringement of the defendant’s rights than it ever before has sanctioned. In Galloway, the Court upheld the modern form of directed verdict against' a Seventh Amendment challenge, but it is clear that a similar form of directed verdict existed at common law in 1791. E. g., Beauchamp v. Borret, Peake 148, 170 Eng. Rep. 110 (N. P. 1792); Coupey v. Henley, 2 Esp. 540, 542, 170 Eng. Rep. 448, 449 (C. P. 1797).15 The modern form did not materially alter the function of the jury. Similarly, the modern device of summary judgment was found not to violate the Seventh Amendment because in 1791 a demurrer to the evidence, a procedural device substantially similar to summary judgment, was a common practice. E. g., Pawling v. United States, 4 Cranch 219, 221-222 (1808).16 *350The procedural devices of summary judgment and directed verdict are direct descendants of their common-law antecedents. They accomplish nothing more than could have been done at common law, albeit by a more cumbersome procedure. See also Montgomery Ward & Co. v. Duncan, 311 U. S. 243, 250 (1940). And while at common law there apparently was no practice of setting aside a verdict in part,17 the Court in Gasoline Products permitted a partial retrial of “distinct and separable” issues because the change in procedure would not impair the substance of the right to jury trial. 283 U. S., at 498. The parties in Gasoline Products still enjoyed the right to have a jury determine all issues of fact.
By contrast, the development of nonmutual estoppel is a substantial departure from the common law and its use in this case completely deprives petitioners of their right to have a jury determine contested issues of fact. I am simply unwilling to accept the Court’s presumption that the complete extinguishment of petitioners’ right to trial by jury can be justified as a mere change in “procedural incident or detail.” Over 40 years ago, Mr. Justice Sutherland observed in a not dissimilar case: “[T]his court in a very special sense is charged with the duty of construing and upholding the Constitution; and in the discharge of that important duty, it ever must be alert to see that a doubtful precedent be not extended by mere analogy to a different case if the result will be to weaken or subvert what it conceives to be a principle of the fundamental law of the land.” Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U. S., at 485.
*351II
Even accepting, arguendo, the majority’s position that there is no violation of the Seventh Amendment here, I nonetheless would not sanction the use of collateral estoppel in this case. The Court today holds:
“The general rule should be that in cases where a plaintiff could easily have joined in the earlier action or where, either for the reasons discussed above or for other reasons, the application of offensive estoppel would be unfair to a defendant, a trial judge should not allow the use of offensive collateral estoppel.” Ante, at 331.
In my view, it is “unfair” to apply offensive collateral estoppel where the party who is sought to be estopped has not had an opportunity to have the facts of his case determined by a jury. Since in this case petitioners were not entitled to a jury trial in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit,18 I would not estop them from relitigating the issues determined in the SEC suit before a jury in the private action. I believe that several factors militate in favor of this result.
First, the use of offensive collateral estoppel in this case runs counter to the strong federal policy favoring jury trials, even if it does not, as the majority holds, violate the Seventh Amendment. The Court’s decision in Beacon Theatres, Inc. v. Westover, 359 U. S. 500 (1950), exemplifies that policy. In Beacon Theatres the Court held that where both equitable and legal claims or defenses are presented in a single case, “only under the most imperative circumstances, circumstances which in view of the flexible procedures of the Federal Rules we cannot now anticipate, can the right to a jury trial of legal issues be lost through prior determination of equitable claims.” *352Id., at 510-511.19 And in Jacob v. New York, 315 U. S. 752, 752-753 (1942), the Court stated: “The right of jury trial in civil cases at common law is a basic and fundamental feature of our system of federal jurisprudence which is protected by the Seventh Amendment. A right so fundamental and sacred to the citizen, whether guaranteed by the Constitution or provided by statute, should be jealously guarded by the courts.” Accord, Simler v. Conner, 372 U. S. 221, 222 (1963); Byrd v. Blue Ridge Rural Electric Cooperative, Inc., 356 U. S. 525, 537-539 (1958) (strong federal policy in favor of juries requires jury trials in diversity cases, regardless of state practice). Today's decision will mean that in a large number of private cases defendants will no longer enjoy the right to jury trial.20 Neither the Court nor respondent has adverted or cited to any unmanageable problems that have resulted *353from according defendants jury trials in such cases. I simply see no “imperative circumstances” requiring this wholesale abrogation of jury trials.21
Second, I believe that the opportunity for a jury trial in the second action could easily lead to a different result from that obtained in the first action before the court and therefore that it is unfair to estop petitioners from relitigating the issues before a jury. This is the position adopted in the Restatement (Second) of Judgments, which disapproves of the application of offensive collateral estoppel where the defendant has an opportunity for a jury trial in the second lawsuit that was not available in the first action.22 The Court accepts the proposition that it is unfair to apply offensive collateral estoppel “where the second action affords the defendant procedural opportunities unavailable in the first action that could readily cause a different result.” Ante, at 331. Differences in discovery opportunities between the two actions are cited as examples of situations where it would be unfair to permit offensive collateral estoppel. Ante, at 331 n. 15. But in the Court’s view, the fact that petitioners would have been entitled to a jury trial in the present action is not such a “procedural opportunity]” because “the presence or absence of a jury as factfinder is basically neutral, quite unlike, for example, the *354necessity of defending the first lawsuit in an inconvenient forum.” Ante, at 332 n. 19 (emphasis added).
As is evident from the prior brief discussion of the development of the civil jury trial guarantee in this country, those who drafted the Declaration of Independence and debated so passionately the proposed Constitution during the ratification period, would indeed be astounded to learn that the presence or absence of a jury is merely “neutral,” whereas the availability of discovery, a device unmentioned in the Constitution, may be controlling. It is precisely because the Framers believed that they might receive a different result at the hands of a jury of their peers than at the mercy of the sovereign’s judges, that the Seventh Amendment was adopted. And I suspect that anyone who litigates cases before juries in the 1970’s would be equally amazed to hear of the supposed lack of distinction between trial by court and trial by jury. The Court can cite no authority in support of this curious proposition. The merits of civil juries have been long debated, but I suspect that juries have never been accused of being merely “neutral” factors.23
Contrary to the majority’s supposition, juries can make a difference, and our cases have, before today at least, recognized this obvious fact. Thus, in Colgrove v. Battin, 413 U. S., at 157, we stated that “the purpose of the jury trial in . . . civil cases [is] to assure a fair and equitable resolution of factual issues, Gasoline Products Go. v. Champlin Co., 283 U. S. 494, 498 (1931) ....’’ And in Byrd v. Blue Ridge *355Rural Electrical Cooperative, supra, at 537, the Court conceded that “the nature of the tribunal which tries issues may be important in the enforcement of the parcel of rights making up a cause of action or defense .... It may well be that in the instant personal-injury case the outcome would be substantially affected by whether the issue of immunity is decided by a judge or a jury.” See Curtis v. Loether, 415 U. S., at 198; cf. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 156 (1968). Jurors bring to a case their common sense and community values; their “very inexperience is an asset because it secures a fresh perception of each trial, avoiding the stereotypes said to infect the judicial eye.” H. Kalven & H. Zeisel, The American Jury 8 (1966).
The ultimate irony of today's decision is that its potential for significantly conserving the resources of either the litigants or the judiciary is doubtful at best. That being the case, I see absolutely no reason to frustrate so cavalierly the important federal policy favoring jury decisions of disputed fact questions. The instant case is an apt example of the minimal savings that will be accomplished by the Court's decision. As the Court admits, even if petitioners are collaterally estopped from relitigating whether the proxy was materially false and misleading, they are still entitled to have a jury determine whether respondent was injured by the alleged misstatements and the amount of damages, if any, sustained by respondent. Ante, at 325 n. 2. Thus, a jury must be impaneled in this case in any event. The time saved by not trying the issue of whether the proxy was materially false and misleading before the jury is likely to be insubstantial.24 It is just as probable that today’s decision will have the result of coercing defendants to agree to consent orders or settle*356ments in agency enforcement actions in order to preserve their right to jury trial in the private actions. In that event, the Court, for no compelling reason, will have simply added a powerful club to the administrative agencies’ arsenals that even Congress was unwilling to provide them.

 Because I believe that the use of offensive collateral estoppel in this particular case was improper, it is not necessary for me to decide whether I would approve its use in circumstances where the defendant’s right to a jury trial was not impaired.

 See, e. g., Colgrove v. Battin, 413 U. S. 149 (1973); Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U. S. 1 (1899); Parsons v. Bedford, 3 Pet. 433 (1830); Henderson, The Background of the Seventh Amendment, 80 Harv. L. Rev. 289 (1966) (hereinafter Henderson); Wolfram, The Constitutional History of the Seventh Amendment, 57 Minn. L. Rev. 639 (1973) (hereinafter Wolfram). See also United States v. Wonson, 28 E. Cas. 745 (No. 16,750) (CC Mass. 1812) (Story, C. J.).

 The Declaration of Independence states: “For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.” Just two years earlier, in the Declaration of Rights adopted October 14, 1774, the first Continental Congress had unanimously resolved that “the respective colonies are entitled to the common law of England, and more especially to the great and inestimable privilege of being tried by their peers of the vicinage, according to the course of that law.” 1 Journals of the Continental Congress 69 (1904).
Holdsworth has written that of all the new methods adopted to strengthen the administration of the British laws, “the most effective, and therefore the most disliked, was the extension given to the jurisdiction of the reorganized courts of admiralty and vice-admiralty. It was the most effective, because it deprived the defendant of the right to be tried by a jury which was almost certain to acquit him.” 11 W. Holdsworth, A History of English Law 110 (1966). While the vice-admiralty courts dealt *341chiefly with criminal offenses, their jurisdiction also was extended to many areas of the civil law. Wolfram 654 n. 47.

 Ga. Const., Art. LXI (1777), in 2 The Federal and State Constitutions Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws 785 (F. Thorpe ed. 1909) (hereinafter Thorpe); Md. Const., Art. Ill (1776), in 3 Thorpe 1686-1687; Mass. Const., Art. XV (1780), in 3 Thorpe 1891-1892; N. H. Const., Art. XX (1784), in 4 Thorpe 2456; N. J. Const., Art. XXII (1776), in 5 Thorpe 2598; N. Y. Const., Art. XLI (1777), in 5 Thorpe 2637; N. C. Const., Declaration of Rights, Art. XIV (1776), in 5 Thorpe 2788; Pa. Const., Declaration of Rights, Art. XI (1776), in 5 Thorpe 3083; S. C. Const., Art. XLI (1778), in 6 Thorpe 3257; Va. Const., Bill of Rights, § 11 (1776), in 7 Thorpe 3814. See Wolfram 655.

 When Congress in 1787 adopted the Northwest Ordinance for governance of the territories west of the Appalachians, it included a guarantee of trial by jury in civil cases. 2 Thorpe 960-961.

 The proposal was to add the following language to Art. Ill: “And a trial by jury shall be preserved as usual in civil cases.” 2 M. Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, p. 628 (1911). The *342debate regarding this proposal is quoted in Colgrove v. Battin, supra, at 153-155, n. 8.

 The objection of Mr. Gorham of Massachusetts was that “[t]he constitution of Juries is different in different States and the trial itself is usual in different cases in different States.” 2 M. Farrand, supra, at 628. Commentators have suggested several additional reasons for the failure of the convention to include a civil jury guarantee. See Henderson 294-295; (“[T]he true reason for omitting a similar provision for civil juries was at least in part that the convention members simply wanted to go home”); Wolfram 660-666.

 See Henderson 298; Wolfram 667-703. Virginia’s recommended jury trial amendment is typical: “That, in controversies respecting property, and in suits between man and man, the ancient trial by jury is one of the greatest securities to the rights of the people, and [ought] to remain sacred *343and inviolable.” 3 J. Elliot, Debates on the Federal Constitution 658 (2d ed. 1836).

 The Judiciary Act of September 24, 1789, which was passed within six months of the organization of the new government and on the day before the first 10 Amendments were proposed to the legislatures of the States by the First Congress, provided for a civil jury trial right. 1 Stat. 77.

 Thomas Jefferson stated: “I consider [trial by jury] as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.” 3 The Writings of Thomas Jefferson 71 (Washington ed. 1861).

 Wolfram 671. Professor Wolfram has written:
“[T]he antifederalists were not arguing for the institution of civil jury trial in the belief that jury trials were short, inexpensive, decorous and productive of the same decisions that judges sitting without juries would produce. The inconveniences of jury trial were accepted precisely because in important instances, through its ability to disregard substantive rules of law, the jury would reach a result that the judge either could not or would not reach. Those who favored the civil jury were not misguided tinkerers with procedural devices; they were, for the day, libertarians who avowed that important areas of protection for litigants in general, and for debtors in particular, would be placed in grave danger unless it were required that juries sit in civil cases.” Id., at 671-672.

 The majority suggests that Dimick v. Schiedt is not relevant to the decision in this case because it dealt with the second clause of the Seventh Amendment. Ante, at 336 n. 23. I disagree. There is no intimation in that opinion that the first clause should be treated any differently from the second. The Dimick Court’s respect 'for the guarantees of the Seventh Amendment applies as much to the first clause as to the second.

 See Smith v. Kernochen, 7 How. 198, 218 (1849); Hopkins v. Lee, 6 Wheat. 109, 113-114 (1821); F. Buller, An Introduction to the Law Relative to Trials at Nisi Prius *232 (7th ed. 1817); T. Peake, A Compendium of the Law of Evidence 38 (2d ed. 1806).

 The Court’s decision in Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation is, on its facts, limited to the defensive use of collateral estoppel in patent cases. Abandonment of mutuality is a recent development. The case of Bernhard v. Bank of America Nat. Trust & Sav. Assn., 19 Cal. 2d 807, 122 P. 2d 892, generally considered the seminal case adopting the new approach, was not decided until 1942.

 See Henderson 302-303 (“In the England of 1790 the phrase 'to direct a verdict’ was common. Further, it was commonplace to instruct the jury 'that the plaintiff was entitled to recover,’ or ‘the plaintiff must have a verdict’ ”); Scott, Trial by Jury and the Reform of Civil Procedure, 31 Harv. L. Rev. 669, 686 (1918) (cases cited therein).

 To demur, a party would admit the truth of all the facts adduced against him and every adverse inference that could be drawn therefrom, and the court would determine which party should receive judgment on *350the basis of these admitted facts and inferences. See Slocum v. New York Life Ins. Co., 228 U. S. 364, 388 (1913); Gibson v. Hunter, 2 H. Bl. 187, 126 Eng. Rep. 499 (N. P. 1793); Henderson 304-305; Scott, supra n. 15, at 683-684.

 The Court in Gasoline Products quoted Lord Mansfield, who stated that when a verdict is correct as to one issue but erroneous as to another “'for form’s sake, we must set aside the whole verdict ....’” Edie v. East India Co., 1 W. Bl. 295, 298 (K. B. 1761), quoted 283 U. S., at 498.

 1 agree with the Court that “petitioners did not have a right to a jury trial in the equitable injunctive action brought by the SEC.” Ante, at 338 n. 24.

 Meeker v. Ambassador Oil Cory., 375 TJ. S. 160 (1963) (per curiam), is a case where the doctrine of collateral estoppel yielded to the right to a jury trial. In Meeker, plaintiffs asserted both equitable and legal claims, which presented common issues, and demanded a jury trial. The trial court tried the equitable claim first, and decided that claim, and the common issues, adversely to plaintiffs. As a result, it held that plaintiffs were precluded from relitigating those same issues before a jury on their legal claim. 308 F. 2d 875, 884 (CA10 1962). Plaintiffs appealed, alleging a denial of their right to a jury trial, but the Tenth Circuit affirmed the trial court. - This Court reversed the Court of Appeals on the basis of Beacon Theatres, Inc. v. Westover, 359 U. S. 500 (1959), and Dairy Queen, Inc. v. Wood, 369 U. S. 469 (1962), even though, .unlike those cases, the equitable action in Meeker already had been tried and the common issues determined by the court. Thus, even though the plaintiffs in Meeker had received a “full and fair” opportunity to try the common issues in the prior equitable action, they nonetheless were given the opportunity to retry those issues before a jury. Today’s decision is totally inconsistent with Meeker and the Court fails to explain this inconsistency.

 The Court’s decision today may well extend to other areas, such as antitrust, labor, employment discrimination, consumer protection, and the like, where a private plaintiff may sue for damages based on the same or similar violations that are the subject of government actions.

 This is not to say that Congress cannot commit enforcement of statutorily created rights to an “administrative process or specialized court of equity.” Curtis v. Loether, 415 U. S. 189, 195 (1974); see Atlas Roofing Co., Inc. v. Occupational Safety & Health Review Comm’n, 430 U. S. 442 (1977); Katchen v. Landy, 382 U. S. 323 (1966); NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Cory., 301 U. S. 1 (1937).

 Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 88 (2), Comment d (Tent. Draft No. 2, Apr. 15, 1975). Citing Rachal v. Hill, 435 F. 2d 59 (CA5 1970), cert, denied, 403 U. S. 904 (1971), the Reporter’s Note states: “The differences between the procedures available in the first and second actions, while not sufficient to deny issue preclusion between the same parties, may warrant a refusal to carry over preclusion to an action involving another party.” Restatement, supra, at 100.

 See, e. g., Hearings on Recording of Jury Deliberations before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., 63-81 (1955) (thorough summary of arguments pro and con on jury trials and an extensive bibliography); H. Kalven & H. Zeisel, The American Jury 4 n. 2 (1966) (bibliography); Redish, Seventh Amendment Right to Jury Trial: A Study in the Irrationality of Rational Decision Making, 70 Nw. U. L. Rev. 486, 502-508 (1975) (discussion of arguments for and against juries).

 Much of the delay in jury trials is attributed to the jury selection, voir dire, and the charge. See H. Zeisel, H. Kalven, & B. Buchholz, Delay in the Court 79 (1959). None of these delaying factors will be avoided by today’s decision.