protecting my 7th amendment rights

Factual Questions
1

the 7th amendment guarantees the right to a jury trial for matters whose value ‘shall exceed twenty dollars’. is this 20 dollars in 1791 money or 2000 money? does the amount get updated based on current dollar values?

2

It is 20 dollars. The only way to update it would be with a constitutional amendment. The Seventh Amendment only applies to federal courts, and the right can be waived if neither side makes an affirmative demand for a jury trial.

3

Bummer. So I can’t go waving around a copy of the big C in Traffic Court. Like Mr. Soprano says, “always a f***in’ loophole.”

4

It applies only to federal courts, and only to suits at common law (not equity proceedings). There are relatively few federal civil suits that could conceivable involve a such a small amount of money. Besides, demanding a jury trial in a $20 case is probably the best way to piss off the judge. We went over some of the ramifications a month ago at http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=27514

5

I’ve heard the term ‘equity proceedings’ a few times on the SDMB, as well as a reference to the previously-existent English ‘Equity Court.’ What are equity proceedings? How do they differ from civil and criminal proceedings?

6

so when the amendment was ratified, it specified 20 dollars. does anyone know what that would translate to today? maybe the original authors would be surprised to know that we allow a jury trial for such an insignificant sum - like we don’t mind wasting people’s time or something.

7

I found an historic inflation calculator, but it only went back to 1800. In 1800, $20 was worth about $190 now.

However, that figure seems a bit low.

8

Equity proceedings involve non-monetary civil claims. An example would be a case in which the plaintiff was seeking an injunction. An injunction is an order which compels a defendant to stop doing something or (less commonly) to do something that he isn’t presently doing.

For example, if you are an employee, and sign a contract that contains an enforceable covenant not to compete with your employer for a year after you leave your job, and you breach that covenant, your ex-employer can obtain an injunction to make you stop.

9

In the first set of amendments for the Bill of Rights that were voted in the House, there was a provision for a $1,000 minimum for any case to reach the Supreme Court. There originally was no minimum to require a jury in the first draft of the Bill of Rights.

10

Let me supplement what I said above, which is a practical definition of what equity means today in the U.S. Historically, the term *equity proceedings * had a broader, slightly different meaning.

American law (except for Louisiana) derives from English common law. Common law is a system based upon precedent. If a case similar to yours was decided in a particular way in the past, that precedent is binding on your present-day judge. Common law principles are supplemented by statutes.
While common law provides predictability and stability, it can lead to unfair results in rare cases.

Today, most American jurisdictions have a unified court system. While there might be separate departments to hear different types of cases, those departments are part of one court system. Tnat wasn’t always the case. In medieval England, many different court systems evolved. One was the ecclesiastical court system, which dealt with church matters. Members of the clergy could only be tried by this system. These ecclesiastical courts evolved into the Court of Chancery, which wasn’t strictly bound by common law precedents. Instead, cases were decided on principals of fairness, or equity.

This separation between courts of chancery and common law courts carried over to the U.S. Today, in states I am familiar with, and in the federal system, this separation has mostly disappeared. Federal District Court (trial court) judges hear both equitable and non-equitable matters. In Illinois, where I practice, some counties have separate Chancery divisions, which hear equitable matters, but they are part of the same Circuit Court (Illinois trial court) system. Generally speaking, those chancellors get the non-monetary cases, as I said previously, such as injunctions, declaratory claims, foreclosures, name changes, administrative review and mandamus.

11

Wait a minute. Would it be applied to state court through the 14th amendment, if one chooses to invoke it? Or has that been decided by the courts already?

12

The Supreme Court has ruled on certain amendments being applicable to the states under the 14th Amendment, in particular the 1st Amendment.

There have been a lot of cases about the rights of defendants and the right to sue in state courts, so I’m sure that the Supreme Court has already ruled on this issue at some time.

13

Thanks, Random

14

Hey, I could really put that calculator to some good use, what is it, a website, or some downloadable program? Tell me more!

15

Here is one of several inflation calculators on the 'net: http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

16

I always sort of wondered what the inflationary trend was. Using bibliophage’s calculator I came up with the following graph.


1000                                                              .
950
900
850
800
750                                                            .
700
650
600
550
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450                                                         .
400
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250                                                      .
200                                                   .
150                                                .
100   .  .  .              .              .  .  .	
50             .  .  .  .     .  .  .  .	
0
     1800  1820  1840  1860  1880  1900  1920  1940  1960  1980  2000