The Abolition of the Right to Trial by Jury in Civil Cases in England

Abstract

Abstract Prior to 1854, jury trial was the exclusive mode of resolving cases involving disputed facts at common law. By 1935, the civil jury trial had been virtually eliminated in all but a few obscure types of tort action. This article consists of a detailed examination, based primarily on legislative sources and contemporary legal periodicals, of how the right to trial by jury in civil cases was abolished. The first concrete step towards jury abolition occurred in 1854, when litigants in high court cases were empowered to waive their right to jury trial in favour of trial by judge alone. Thereafter, a series of legislative acts and judicial rules incrementally transferred the power to choose the mode of trial in particular types of cases from litigants to trial judges, who routinely chose trial by judge alone.