United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Baltimore & Carolina Line, Inc. v. Redman, 295 U.S. 654 (1935)

Baltimore & Carolina Line, Inc. v. Redman

No. 178

Argued December 6, 1934

Decided June 3, 1935.

295 U.S. 654

CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

1. The right to trial by jury preserved by the Seventh Amendment is the right which existed under the English common law when the Amendment was adopted. P. 295 U. S. 657.

2. The Amendment not only preserves that right, but exhibits a studied purpose to protect it from indirect impairment through possible enlargements of the power of reexamination existing under the common law, and, to that end, declares that "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." P. 295 U. S. 657.

3. The aim of the Amendment 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, whereby, in the absence of express or implied consent to the contrary, issues of law are to be resolved by the court, and issues of fact are to be determined by the jury under appropriate instructions by the court. P. 295 U. S. 657.

Page 295 U. S. 655