QUESTION: What is a Supreme Court Justice’s fundamental job?

The 7th Amendment commands:

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.

It is thus crystal clear our Supreme Court is commanded to follow “the rules of the common law”.

Now, do you know one of the most fundamental rules of the common law? If you don’t know, let me be the first to inform you. It requires an adherence to legislative intent.

JWK


The whole aim of construction, as applied to a provision of the Constitution, is to discover the meaning, to ascertain and give effect to the intent of its framers and the people who adopted it.
_____HOME BLDG. & LOAN ASS’N v. BLAISDELL, 290 U.S. 398 (1934)

Nope. You are misreading the amendment.

But as I said we will have to agree to disagree.

We shall never have a meeting on the minds on the 7th.

You have you opinion

I have mine.

SCOTUS will rule. Lol

Allan

We are not here taking about opinions. We are talking about the 7th Amendment.

The 7th Amendment commands:

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.

By the 7th Amendment’s language quoted above, United States courts shall re- examine facts “according to the rules of the common law”.

Now, do you know one of the most fundamental rules of the common law? If you don’t know, let me be the first to inform you. It requires an adherence to legislative intent.

JWK

The whole aim of construction, as applied to a provision of the Constitution, is to discover the meaning, to ascertain and give effect to the intent of its framers and the people who adopted it._____HOME BLDG. & LOAN ASS’N v. BLAISDELL, 290 U.S. 398 (1934)

No need to wait, see their reaction to Citizens United.

Shouldn’t this $20 be adjusted for inflation???

The significance of $20 then and now has to be extremely different.

No. It should not be adjusted for inflation. But the definition of a “dollar” as distinguished from a Federal Reserve Note, must be observed.

CLICK HERE for the definition of a dollar.

JWK

Then how do we if the ‘‘dollars’’ are equal?

Huh? A “dollar” and a one dollar “Federal Reserve Note” are not equal.

JWK

What are ‘‘20 dollars’’ in the amendment worth in todays dollars?

Common law is non-stauory law.

By definition, no “legislative intent” exists for common law.

This is a quite a baffling and weird misinterpretation of the 7th.

Fourteenth Amendment, you twit.

Today’s dollars? Are you referring to Federal Reserve Notes? Today’s common currency is the Federal Reserve Note, and there are various denominations of Federal Reserve Notes, e.g., one dollar, three dollar, five dollar, ten dollar, etc, but they are not dollars as expressed in Amendment 7.

To roughly compare the worth of twenty dollars as expressed in Amendment 7 of our Constitution with a twenty dollar Federal Reserve Note one needs to determine the spot price of gold or silver which is given in Federal Reserve Notes. For example, silver is now selling for approximately $15.75 Federal Reserve one dollar notes per ounce.

JWK

“Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring class of mankind, none have been more effectual than that which deludes them with paper money. This is the most effectual of inventions to fertilize the rich man’s field by the sweat of the poor man’s brow.”_____ Daniel Webster.

We are here talking about “the rules of the common law” as distinguished from “common law”, i.e, we are talking about procedure.

In a newspaper article published in the Alexandria Gazette, July 2, 1819, Chief Justice Marshall asserted he could “cite from [the common law] the most complete evidence that the intention is the most sacred rule of interpretation.”

It should also be pointed out that the notable Justice Story, in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1833) wrote: “The first and fundamental rule in the interpretation of all instruments is, to construe them according to the sense of the terms, and the intention of the parties.”

And let us not forget that our very own Supreme Court, in Hawaii v. Mankichi, 190 U.S. 197 (1903), confirms the historical validity of enforcing legislative intent is a priority of the Court:

”But there is another question underlying this and all other rules for the interpretation of statutes, and that is what was the intention of the legislative body? Without going back to the famous case of the drawing of blood in the streets of Bologna, the books are full of authorities to the effect that the intention of the lawmaking power will prevail even against the letter of the statute; or, as tersely expressed by Mr. Justice Swayne in 90 U.S. 380 :

“A thing may be within the letter of a statute and not within its meaning, and within its meaning, though not within its letter. The intention of the lawmaker is the law.”

This very rule concerning legislative intent is also stated by Jefferson in the following words:

“On every question of construction [of the Constitution], carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”–Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p. 322.

And the noteworthy Chancellor James Kent, in his Commentaries on American Law [1858] confirms the truth of the matter as follows:

"The Constitution is the act of the people, speaking in their original character, and defining the permanent conditions of the social alliance; and there can be no doubt on the point with us, that every act of the legislative power contrary to the true intent and meaning of the Constitution, is absolutely null and void.

In fact, being obedient to the documented legislative intent of our Constitution was acknowledged in HOME BLDG. & LOAN ASSOCIATION v. BLAISDELL, 290 U.S. 398 (1934)

”The whole aim of construction, as applied to a provision of the Constitution, is to discover the meaning, to ascertain and give effect to the intent of its framers and the people who adopted it.”

JWK

I’m not saying that legislative intent isn’t an important part of judicial interpretation.

I’m just saying that the 7th Amendment has nothing to do with it.

You’re right that the 7th is about procedure- that’s exactly what it is - it codified the common law procedures for civil suits.

It has nothing to do with constitutional or statutory interpretation.

That makes no sense.

What you need to do is calculate what $20 bought then and then see how much the same would cost now. You know it’s a lot more. don’t lie now

It’s moot unless you’re suggesting a case less than $20 would make it’s way up to the Supreme Court, which is what we’re talking about.

No I’m saying the limit should be much, much higher than $20. What do you think $20 in 1790 would be today?

You are free to say what you will. But keep in mind the 7th Amendment’s language, which I quoted above, commands United States courts shall re- examine facts “according to the rules of the common law”. And under “the rules of the common law” one of the most fundamental rules of interpretation requires the court to take note of and enforce “legislative intent” .

“Whether a clause in the Constitution is to be restricted by the rules of the English law as they existed when the Constitution was adopted depends upon the terms or the nature of the particular clause in question. Certainly, these rules have no such restrictive effect in respect of any constitutional grant of governmental power (Waring v. Clarke, supra), though they do, at least in some instances, operate restrictively in respect of clauses of the Constitution which guarantee and safeguard the fundamental rights and liberties of the individual, the best examples of which, perhaps, are the Sixth and Seventh Amendments, which guarantee the right of trial by jury. That guaranty has always been construed to mean a trial in the mode and according to the settled rules of the common law, including all the essential elements recognized in this country and England when the Constitution was adopted. Continental Ill. Nat. Bank & Trust Co. v. Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co., 294 U.S. 648 (1935):

JWK

Those who reject abiding by the intentions and beliefs under which our Constitution was agree to, as those intentions and beliefs may be documented from historical records, wish to remove the anchor and rudder of our constitutional system so they may then be free to “interpret” the Constitution to mean whatever they wish it to mean.