Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by dragonwriter 755 days ago
It's possible to avoid a jury trial in a civil case by removing from dispute the issues which would give the other side the right to demand a jury trial.
1 comments

How is that beneficial to society?
Each individual legal rule isn’t formulated according to a free-ranging consideration of what’s “beneficial to society.” It would be impossible to administer such a system of rules based on ad hoc policy considerations.

The rule here, the Seventh Amendment, confers a right to a jury trial when one would have been required under English common law at the time the seventh amendment was written. Roughly speaking, in the English system, cases involving monetary damages were handled in courts of law with juries. Cases that involved injunctive relief (orders to do or not do something) were handled in courts of equity with decisions made by judges.

> How is that beneficial to society?

How is it beneficial to not require extra public burden to complete cases when the issues justifying that burden are resolved without trial?

Or how is it beneficial that issues get resolved without trial?

Because I think both have clear benefits in general.

The dispute is resolved.
but it's not resolved, it is "repaired" by a cheque for an amount that was determined ahead of time by google, and the jury not consulted at all?
It's only resolved if the court agrees that the amount tendered is the limit of the monetary judgement it would legally be possible for the government to secure at trial, and that such a tender does remove the issue from the case (both of which are disputed points) in which case the damages issues would be resolved and removed from the case, and the rest of the case would go forward, but as a bench trial, not a jury trial.
It wasn't an amount determined by Google. It was the entire amount claimed by DoJ, tripled, and with interest.