Iowa Nat. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Mitchell

• Decision Date: 13 May 1981
• Docket Number: No. 64427,64427
• Citation: 305 N.W.2d 724
• Parties: IOWA NATIONAL MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY and Dale Sharp and Marilyn Sharp, Appellants, v. Craig MITCHELL, Appellee.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 724

305 N.W.2d 724

IOWA NATIONAL MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY and Dale Sharp and Marilyn Sharp, Appellants, v. Craig MITCHELL, Appellee.

No. 64427.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

May 13, 1981.

James D. Lohman of Reimer, Vipond & Lohman, Denison, for appellants.

Thomas R. Eller of Nash, Eller, Brink & Claussen, Denison, for appellee.

Considered en banc.

REYNOLDSON, Chief Justice.

This appeal requires us to decide whether a party to a small claims proceeding has a constitutional right to a jury trial under article I, section 9, of the Iowa Constitution.

Following a vehicular collision, plaintiffs Sharp and their collision insurance carrier sued defendant Mitchell for $500 for damages to the Sharp auto. Mitchell counterclaimed and unsuccessfully demanded a jury. A judicial magistrate, after trial, rendered judgment for $500 against Mitchell.

Mitchell appealed the small claims judgment, asserting he was entitled to a jury trial under section 631.11(1), The Code 1979, and if the statute could not be so construed it was unconstitutional under article I, section 9, of the Iowa Constitution. The district judge ruled section 631.11 did not permit a jury trial, and found such a denial was unconstitutional as alleged. The judgment rendered by the magistrate was reversed and the case was remanded for jury trial.

Plaintiffs petitioned for discretionary review of the portion of the district judge's ruling that held section 631.11 is unconstitutional insofar as it proscribes the alleged right to a jury trial. Defendant petitioned for discretionary review of the portion of the ruling that held section 631.11 could not be construed to permit jury trials. We granted review on both petitions. The issues have been well briefed and presented in this court.

I. Is a jury trial in small claims actions permitted by section 631.11, The Code?

Our Small Claims Act, chapter 631, The Code, was developed as part of the legislation that established a unified trial court in Iowa. 1972 Session, 64th G.A., ch. 1124, § 60 et seq. We described its salient features in Barnes Beauty College v. McCoy, 279 N.W.2d 258, 259-60 (Iowa 1979). There is no separate small claims court, but there is a small claims docket in district court. Wilson v. Iowa District Court, 297 N.W.2d 223, 225-26 (Iowa 1980).

"Small claims" are limited to a "civil action for a money judgment where the amount in controversy is one thousand dollars or less, exclusive of interest and costs," and "an action for forcible entry and detainer which is based on those grounds set forth in section 648.1, subsections 1, 2, 3 and 5." § 631.1, The Code. Jurisdiction over these controversies is exercised by "(t)he district court sitting in small claims," id. § 631.2, although the limited jurisdiction over forcible entry and detainer cases apparently is a concurrent jurisdiction, id. § 631.1(2).

The statute that requires our special scrutiny is section 631.11(1):

Informality. The hearing shall be to the court, shall be simple and informal, and shall be conducted by the court itself, without regard to technicalities of procedure.

(Emphasis supplied.) We must determine the legislative intent, applying the criteria we recently collected in Loras College v. Iowa Civil Rights Commission, 285 N.W.2d 143, 147-48 (Iowa 1979).

If the legislature intended "court" to mean magistrate or judge, then use of the word "shall," a term mandatory in nature, clearly eliminates any necessity or even option of trial by jury. See § 4.1(36)(a), The Code ("The word 'shall' imposes a duty."); Black's Law Dictionary 1233 (5th ed. 1979).

It is true, as defendant argues, that the word "court" may be used to mean a judge only or, alternatively, the tribunal itself, including the judge and jury. Compare § 609.35, The Code (recall of jurors if warranted by "business before the court"), with Iowa R.Crim.P. 16 ("Trial by jury or court"). Defendant invokes our rule that if more than one construction is possible, one of which will render the statute constitutional and another that will render it unconstitutional or of doubtful constitutionality, the construction by which it will be upheld will be followed and adopted. Iowa City v. Nolan, 239 N.W.2d 102, 103 (Iowa 1976); see Stoller Fisheries, Inc. v. American Title Insurance Co., 258 N.W.2d 336, 346 (Iowa 1977).

We think it is plain, however, that in section 631.11(1) the legislature intended to confine "court" to mean a magistrate or judge. Such interpretation is more consistent with the concept of a "simple and informal" proceeding. This interpretation is reinforced by the provision that the hearing is to be conducted by "the court itself," an obvious step to enhance the role of the magistrate or judge and to diminish the role of lawyers. We are convinced the legislature would not use "court" to mean magistrate (or judge) and jury in the first provision in this subsection, and employ the same word a second time in the same sentence to mean the magistrate or judge alone.

Other chapter 631 provisions support our conclusion that "court" as employed in section 631.11(1) refers only to the magistrate or judge. The first sentence in the next subsection makes it clear that "court" does not include the jury: "The court shall swear the parties and their witnesses, and examine them in such a way as to bring out the truth." § 631.11(2), The Code. Under section 631.8(2), "the court" makes certain procedural orders when confronted with a small claim combined with one that is not a small claim. More directly, section 631.2 provides that except when transferred pursuant to section 631.8 from the small claims docket, "small claims may be tried by a judicial magistrate, a district associate judge, or a district judge." Finally, chapter 631 is devoid of references to a jury, including jury demand or jury instructions.

We hold the district judge correctly ruled that chapter 631 small claims must be tried without a jury. Thus we address the constitutionality of section 631.11(1).

II. Does section 631.11(1), which denies a jury trial in small claims proceedings, violate article I, section 9, of the Iowa Constitution?

This provision of Iowa's Bill of Rights provides:

The right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate; but the General Assembly may authorize trial by a jury of a less number than twelve men in inferior courts; but no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.

The comparable clause in the United States Constitution is found in 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 reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Because there is a nexus between interpretations of Iowa's jury provision and the federal provision, ¹ we first examine interpretations of the seventh amendment, even though its provisions have no application to state court proceedings. Walker v. Sauvinet, 92 U.S. 90, 92, 23 L.Ed. 678, 679 (1876); Melancon v. McKeithen, 345 F.Supp. 1025, 1027 (E.D.La.), aff'd sub. nom. Mayes v. Ellis, 409 U.S. 943, 93 S.Ct. 289, 34 L.Ed.2d 214, aff'd sub. nom. Hill v. McKeithen, 409 U.S. 943, 93 S.Ct. 290, 34 L.Ed.2d 214 (1972), aff'd sub. nom. Davis v. Edwards, 409 U.S. 1098, 93 S.Ct. 908, 34 L.Ed.2d 679 (1973); Hunter v. Colfax Consolidated Coal Co., 175 Iowa 245, 327, 154 N.W. 1037, 1067 (1915).

The "historical test" to determine whether a jury constitutionally is required in a civil case has been summarized by Wolfram, The Constitutional History of the Seventh Amendment, 57 Minn.L.Rev. 639, 639-40 (1973):

For at least the past century and a half, judicial and academic writings on the right to jury trial afforded by the seventh amendment have uniformly agreed on one central proposition: in determining whether the seventh amendment requires that a jury be called to decide the case the court must be guided by the practice of English courts in 1791. If a jury would have been impaneled in this kind of case in 1791 English practice, then generally a jury is required by the seventh amendment. If the case is one of those in which a jury would not have sat in England in 1791 then none is required by the seventh amendment.

The above test traces to a circuit court opinion by Mr. Justice Story, United States v. Wonson, 28 F.Cas. 745, 750 (C.C.D.Mass.1812), in which he wrote:

Beyond all question, the common law here alluded to (in the seventh amendment) is not the common law of any individual state, (for it probably differs in all), but it is the common law of England, the grand reservoir of all our jurisprudence.

Thus under the federal provision "(t)he right of trial by jury ... preserved is the right which existed under the English common law when the Amendment was adopted." Baltimore & Carolina Line v. Redman, 295 U.S. 654, 657, 55 S.Ct. 890, 891, 79 L.Ed. 1636, 1638 (1935); see Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, 439 U.S. 322, 333, 99 S.Ct. 645, 652, 58 L.Ed.2d 552, 563 (1979); Curtis v. Loether, 415 U.S. 189, 193, 94 S.Ct. 1005, 1007, 39 L.Ed.2d 260, 265 (1974). Of course jury trials were not confined thereafter to common-law actions, but were extended to cases grounded on statutory and constitutional rights and remedies of the sort typically enforced in an action at law. Curtis, 415 U.S. at 195, 94 S.Ct. at 1009, 39 L.Ed.2d at 267. Thus one historical common-law distinction was drawn between law cases in which juries were allowed, and cases that were tried in the courts of equity or admiralty, or in some other manner without a jury. ²

A second and seldom-noted distinction at common law related to the amount of the claim:

It had been a well established practice in England, and in our early colonial times, that actions for small demands were triable before certain officers having a limited jurisdiction, without a jury .... The sum...