Poor Clarence Elvin Feltner

The Bill of Rights is almost set up as a ranking of the first ten amendments by how exciting they are. Which, to someone blogging about all ten in order, is incredibly demoralizing. Admittedly, the Eighth Amendment seems to buck this trend, but generally, the amendments get increasingly legally intensive and less intriguing as we move from First to Tenth.

My complaining aside, this week we have the Seventh Amendment. While this amendment, like its higher numbered counterparts, isn’t very glorious, it’s an important stipulation as to the government’s role in judicial activity. Here is the text of the Seventh Amendment:

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.

           

The most notable case relating to the Seventh Amendment took place in 1991. C. Elvin Feltner
(his parents must not have loved him) owned Krypton International Corporation, a television syndicate that owned three of its own stations. Columbia Pictures Television licensed a few of its shows to Feltner, none of which I recognize and therefore aren’t worth specifying. The three stations that Krypton operated failed to pay the appropriate royalties to Columbia, and Columbia acted to terminate the relationship and prevent Feltner from broadcasting their shows.

Image Courtesy of Sony at Wikia

Columbia sued Feltner, and the district court ruled, under a section of the Copyright Act, that Feltner was guilty and liable. The lower court awarded Columbia nearly $9 million in damages, denying Feltner’s request to a trial by jury.

As I’m sure you can imagine based on the fact that I’m covering this case, Feltner appealed. The district court’s decision was upheld by the Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court issued a writ of certiorari. I realize now I’ve never explained this term – often abbreviated as cert, granting certiorari means the Court, having analyzed the preliminary facts of the case, would like to consider the case fully.

In a unanimous decision, the Court found in favor of Feltner. For this case, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the decision, one that focused on the historical precedent for handling a case such as this one.

Feltner, in his appeal, argued that the language of the Copyright Act, stating that the award is to be determined by what “the court considers just” and according to “the court in its discretion”, indicated the need for a trial. Thomas, crotchety old man that he is, rejected that claim.

However, the Court still found in favor of Feltner. Throughout both American and English legal history, copyright cases were always held before juries in a court of common law. Scalia pointed out in his concurrence that the right to a trial by jury is thereby guaranteed in a case under the Copyright Act.

If you’ve suffered through the legalese to make it thus far, congratulations are in order. In reward, I provide you this nugget – Feltner won the case, and in reward, received a trial by jury to determine the amount of the damages to be paid. This time, Columbia was awarded almost $32 million, nearly quadruple the original amount. Feltner appealed again, but this time was shut down by the district court, and the Supreme Court did not issue cert.