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Preserve civil juries by limiting forced arbitration and class waivers, modernizing online courts, and requiring reliable, human-accountable algorithmic evidence.
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AI-researched, unverifiedLast Reviewed
Jul 5, 2026
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What is failing, what we would change, and the conclusion we are willing to defend.
The Seventh Amendment protects civil juries in federal suits at common law. It does not apply to the states in the same incorporated way most Bill of Rights guarantees do, and it does not create a constitutional right to class actions. The party should be precise about that. The modern policy problem is broader than the constitutional floor: workers, consumers, patients, tenants, small businesses, and users increasingly lose public adjudication through predispute arbitration clauses, class-action waivers, and low-value harms too small to bring one by one.
The answer is statutory and procedural modernization. Congress has already shown it can carve categories out of forced arbitration, as it did for sexual-assault and sexual-harassment disputes. It can do the same for civil-rights, consumer, worker, data, and algorithmic harms where public accountability and aggregation matter. Courts can modernize online access, case management, and evidence rules without converting public adjudication into a private black box.
Limit enforcement of predispute arbitration clauses and class-action waivers for civil- rights, consumer, worker, data, health, housing, and algorithmic-harm claims where adhesion contracts erase practical accountability.
Preserve court jurisdiction over stayed arbitrable claims and make arbitration outcomes reviewable for statutory categories Congress identifies as public-accountability claims.
Modernize civil courts with e-filing, remote access, plain-language notices, online small- claims tools, early case management, and accessibility without making jury access harder.
Require Rule 702-style reliability for algorithmic or machine-generated evidence in civil cases, including validation, error rates, version history, human sponsors, and meaningful cross-examination where needed.
Preserve jury access carefully where agencies seek punitive civil penalties for claims that resemble traditional common-law suits; that does not mean all agency adjudication is illegitimate.
This position does not treat arbitration as unconstitutional. Arbitration can be useful after a dispute arises, between sophisticated parties, or when people knowingly choose it. The target is forced, predispute, repeat-player arbitration that makes public rights and aggregated low-dollar harms disappear.
Turn frustration into useful pressure.
If this position misses evidence or a lived consequence, challenge it. If it holds up, help test it locally and connect it to the issues around it.