Inflation Makes the Seventh Amendment the Funniest

$20 just doesn’t buy you what it used to…or who it used to

You show up for court in perfectly white tennis shoes, a heavy pink hoodie with sleeves you’ve rolled up to your elbows, jean shorts you’ve secured with a woven leather belt, and of course, a pair of shades. That’s right, you’re a crypto-baron, so your attire has to be as complex as your portfolio!

A few seconds behind you comes the guy you’re suing, Ted. He’s got a bespoke Baldur’s Gate t-shirt on featuring best girl Shadowheart, a pair of jeans, and bad posture. Plus, this man drove all the way to L.A. from Yuma with crocs on, and he isn’t showing any signs of contrition for that or the reason he’s been summoned.

This is definitely going to happen.

The two of you walk down the aisle and split as you approach the judge, each of you going to your separate tables.

The judge stares down at a sheet of paper, his glasses balancing on the end of his nose as he squints past their lens. He’s probably 70, so he’s definitely in tune with stuff like crypto, video editing, and making payments via the interwebs on one of those newfangled cellphones.

His granddaughter can even take pictures with hers!

“Your grace, I would like to request that these charges be dropped, sir,” Ted says. “This individual has only paid me half the cost of my work, and the fact that I’m now being sued as a result is a missed carriage of justice, sir.”

Yeah. He said that. Missed Carriage. This is the guy you might lose a case to.

“Also, your grace —” Ted starts before the judge holds up a hush-palm.

“Son, you stand accused of failing to appropriately complete the task for which you have already been paid half of your requested fee,” starts the judge. “This means that all of the evidence must be reviewed, and the court is not prepared to issue a decision on such today. We are here simply to determine how the two of you would like to proceed.”

Of course, the judge can’t decide today. That would be too cost effective and hopelessly in touch with modern sensibilities. The real court date has to be on a workday, ’cause that’s how we know you really want it.

Ridiculous!

No. You know what you have to do if you want your money back. You know that trying to explain misspelling hodler as holder on your website won’t work with this guy who was celebrating his diamond anniversary when you were celebrating your diamond-handed gains.

You need new blood. You need a jury.

“Your honor, if I may,” you request.

The judge nods. “You may.”

“I’d like to request a jury trial,” you say with confidence.

“You would?” the judge questions, clearly actually puzzled. “It says here that you paid in muidemcoin. 5 upfront and 5 pending on the backend, is that correct?”

“Yes, your grace,” Ted answers for you. “Promised me 10 muis and only gave me 5, and this is after I finished a day early. He also used Peakpocket, which is mostly used for drug —”

The judge stops him again. “I may look as though I’m only good for running for President, but I know a thing or two about crypto,” the judge notes. “Firstly, mui is up to $4.12 right now.”

“Go muimui,” you cheer.

“However,” the judge starts “on the date you were supposed to pay Mr. Talks —”

Ted raises his left pointer finger. “It’s actually Talks — like the powder.”

“On the date Mr. Talks was supposed to be paid,” the judge resumes, “Mui was at $3.52.”

“Correct,” you say with a nod. “I basically put him on the path. He should be paying me a consulting fee, really.”

The judge chuckles. “Perhaps, but that also means that the amount in question is less than $20, and therefore, it doesn’t fall under the constitutional mandate for a jury request. And, since the cost of a trial of any sort would greatly exceed the amounts you’re both requesting, may I suggest you two settle out of court? Maybe you can flip a muidemcoin or something.”

You frown, more dejected than you expected. You want justice. No, you need justice. This isn’t about the money anymore; this is about sending a message.

Go diamond or go home.

“How much are we talking for the cost of a trial?” you ask, puffing out your chest.

“$75,000,” the judge says calmly.

You barely resist the urge to whistle and turn to Ted with puckered lips. “I got heads.”

Andrew Jackson Might Roll Over in His Grave

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 re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

This one’s going to be quick. This is because the 7th is one of those Amendments that has been made obsolete over time. The reasons for the aforementioned redundancy, however, as the title of this article suggests, are hilarious, and even though it’s been a month of Sundays since I last did one of these, I thought I’d do this one for funsies.

So, what is the 7th doing? That’s easy. It’s saying that some cases should have the right to a jury trial. Why would you want a jury trial when you hate jury duty yourself and wouldn’t want to inflict the threat of making less money for two weeks upon another countryman? That’s also simple. A judge can be biased against you or your cause, and a jury could ensure that you at least get some people who care sympathetic to your plea.

The forefathers even baked in a secondary clause that prohibits judges (and even higher courts) from gainsaying the jury’s findings, necessitating a motion for a new trial to even have the jury’s decision re-examined. Yeah, that just means another jury, not passing the buck to a judge who might be in someone’s pocket — not that that happens. No sirree Bob.

Now, before you go jumping for joy over this tremendous win for the common American, let me tell you why this win has gotten quite thin in these years numbering 222 and 10.

One Thin Dime

The $20 amount from the first clause of the 7th was a hefty sum back in the day. A little over $650 in today’s money, in fact. And with half of an iPhone on the line, you can see why someone might want to sue for a piece of it back.

The problem, however, is that we never told the amendment to adjust itself for inflation. So, one could, in theory, request a jury trial for something as small as a dispute over the rights to half a low-end Kindle instead.

Only, that’s not actually true, because — and this is the wild part — suing someone at the level where the 7th would apply costs well over $40,000 per party involved. About a third of such cases (specifically, diversity jurisdiction cases) won’t even go to court if they aren’t for a minimum of $75,000 in value. Those are cases where the parties involved are from different states or countries, and that minimum doesn’t even consider the aforementioned cost per party involved.

So, go big or go home, Jerome!

It Doesn’t Actually State That

Secondly, the Seventh Amendment does not apply to states. That’s right. It applies to federal civil cases — some federal civil cases. It does not apply to cases against the government, it does not apply to cases seeking fair treatment and/or remuneration (judges rule on those), and it does not apply to jobs on LinkedIn because it kinda just made a profile, and it’s all about who you know or brown-nose on there.

That said, it did get some use in a big federal case involving use of media by a broadcasting network. Don’t get your mouth to salivating, though; the corporation did the suing and won, after all.

In Feltner v. Columbia Pictures Television, Inc., Feltner, the owner of a corporation that operates three television stations, was being sued for continuing to run shows he was told not to after he failed to pay royalties. Yeah, Columbia sued someone else for failing to pay royalties. Tuck in; it gets weirder.

A trial court found that Feltner did it on purpose (obviously) and denied his request for a jury trial, instead awarding Columbia $20,000 per act of infringement — of which there were 440. You counted correctly! That means he was ordered to pay $8,800,000.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard it and agreed with the decision, too, but it still went to the Supreme Court, and they found that denying Feltner a jury was unconstitutional based on the 7th.

Here’s the funny part, though. The jury turns around and awards $72,000 per act of infringement, and the Supreme Court blocked the request for a second trial. Yeah. That means Feltner essentially cried for his payment to go from $9 million to $32 million. The charitable soul.

And there you see the 7th giving him access to a jury, the jury acknowledging his misdeed, and the Supreme Court working that re-examination secondary provision of the 7th to keep the jury’s ruling in place.

But Don’t Let That Stop You

Still, jury trials are typically better than judge trials. Judges aren’t bad folks, mind you. They are just very in-tune with the law and the enforcers of said law. Remind yourself that those are the people that police officers go to to get search warrants for people’s homes, and they frequently obtain said warrants.

If you were to tell your neighbors that some Karen is getting your home ransacked because she heard your dog whimper and thinks you’re either keeping someone in bondage or harboring fugitives, they’d probably have your back.

Why? Maybe because they know you. Maybe because they’d be willing to hear you out out of curiosity. The reasons are endless. The most likely reason, however, is probably the same reason you’d hear your neighbor out: you’d want someone to do the same for you.