Newport Housing Authority v. Ballard

• Decision Date: 28 September 1992
• Citation: 839 S.W.2d 86
• Parties: NEWPORT HOUSING AUTHORITY, Plaintiff/Appellee, v. Linda T. BALLARD, Defendant/Appellant.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Page 86

839 S.W.2d 86

NEWPORT HOUSING AUTHORITY, Plaintiff/Appellee, v. Linda T. BALLARD, Defendant/Appellant.

Supreme Court of Tennessee at Knoxville.

Sept. 28, 1992.

Jeffrey A. Armstrong, Morristown, for appellant.

Charles W. Burson, Atty. Gen. & Reporter, Diane M. Nisbet, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Nashville, for the State.

John A. Bell, Newport, for appellee.

OPINION

O'BRIEN, Justice.

In this appeal of a landlord-tenant dispute we are asked to rule upon whether a defendant in an unlawful detainer action, brought under T.C.A. Sec. 29-18-101 et seq., has the constitutional right to a jury trial in a general sessions court.

The appellee, Newport Housing Authority, caused a detainer warrant to be issued against tenant, Linda Ballard. At the detainer warrant hearing in general sessions court Ms. Ballard demanded a jury trial. The demand was denied and after a hearing upon the merits of the cause, the general sessions judge found for the plaintiff and entered judgment granting possession of the subject property to the housing authority. Ms. Ballard served timely notice of appeal from the general sessions court judgment. In the circuit court she motioned for remand, requesting that the cause be sent back to general sessions for a jury trial. The circuit court denied the request.

Subsequent to the denial for remand, a de novo jury trial was held in circuit court pursuant to T.C.A. Sec. 29-18-128 and T.R.C.P. Sec. 38.03. The jury found for the landlord, and possession of the premises was again awarded to the Newport Housing Authority. Contending a violation of the State Constitution of Tennessee, Ms. Ballard appeals the denial of her motion for a general sessions jury trial directly to this Court.

Appellant insists that the required statutory procedure in an unlawful detainer action denies the constitutional guarantee of a trial by jury. She also argues that, because of the amount of bond required to remain in possession of the subject property, the appeal to a de novo circuit court jury trial offers no cure for the lack of jury trial at the general sessions level. In support of this contention, appellant relies entirely upon the conclusion reached in a law review article written in 1975. The author of the article suggests that Tennessee should adopt, by analogy, a non-binding 1974 United States Supreme Court decision holding that the Seventh Amendment of the Constitution guarantees the right to a jury trial in all actions to recover possession of real property brought under a District of Columbia statute. See Brown, Right to a Jury Trial in Forcible Entry and Detainer Actions in General Sessions Courts in Tennessee, 6 Mem.St.U.L.Rev. 59 (1975); also Pernell v. Southall Realty, 416 U.S. 363, 94 S.Ct. 1723, 40 L.Ed.2d 198 (1974).

Newport Housing Authority argues that no right to a jury trial in an unlawful detainer action exists in Tennessee; or, in the alternative, if a guaranteed right to a jury trial in unlawful detainer actions does exist, such right is fulfilled by the availability of a de novo jury trial appeal to the circuit court. The State Attorney General joins this cause in defense of the constitutionality of T.C.A. Sec. 29-18-119 and supports the Housing Authority's contention that no constitutional right to jury trial exists in Tennessee for either party to an unlawful detainer action heard in general sessions court.

At the time the warrant was issued in this case T.C.A. Sec. 29-18-119 provided the manner in which an unlawful detainer action was to be tried in the general sessions court. (a) The cause shall be tried at the time and place designated, by a single general sessions judge, without the intervention of a jury, and in all respects like other civil suits before the court of general sessions.

(b) The general sessions judge will try every case upon its merits, without regard to matters of form, and ascertain whether the plaintiff or defendant is entitled to the possession of the premises agreeably to the laws governing such cases and give judgment accordingly.

(c) The estate, or merits of the title, shall not be inquired into.

Specifically, appellant contends that the statutory mandate of T.C.A. Sec. 29-18-119(a), denying a plaintiff in an unlawful detainer action the right to a jury trial in general sessions court, violates the Tennessee Constitutional guarantee found in Article I, Section 6, which states in part:

the right to a trial by jury shall remain inviolate ¹ ...

We do not find ourselves in accord with appellant's reasoning. Article I, Section 6 of the Tennessee Constitution has never mandated the right to a jury trial in every civil cause. The right of trial by jury sanctioned and secured by this constitutional provision is the right of trial by jury as it existed at common law and was in force and use under the laws and Constitution of North Carolina at the time of the formation and adoption of our Constitution in 1796. Trigally v. Mayor of Memphis, 46 Tenn. 382 (1869); Marler v. Wear, 117 Tenn. 244, 96 S.W. 447 (1906); Harbison v. Briggs Bros. Paint Mfg. Co., 209 Tenn. 534, 354 S.W.2d 464 (1962); Grooms v. State, 221 Tenn. 243, 426 S.W.2d 176 (1968). Cases not triable by jury at the time of the formation of the Constitution need not be made so now. Memphis & Shelby County Bar Association v. Vick, 40 Tenn.App. 206, 290 S.W.2d 871 (1955).

Although actions to recover possession of real property existed at common law the particular action of unlawful detainer resulted from the evolution of the law and did not appear in this State until passage of the first unlawful detainer statute in 1821. ² The Act of 1821 required that an unlawful detainer action be tried before at least two justices and a jury of 20 men. The jury requirement was later deleted from the statute and the minimum number of justices required to try the cause was increased to three (3). ³ In 1879, the Legislature once again amended the statute, to require an unlawful detainer action to be heard and determined by a single justice without the intervention of a jury. This procedure has been carried forward to the present and is included in T.C.A. Sec. 29-18-119(a). It is indisputable that the action of unlawful detainer was non-existent at the time of, or prior to, the adoption of the original Tennessee State Constitution. ⁴ The unlawful detainer statute has served us well for more than 100 years and we fail to see the propriety in declaring it unconstitutional at this late date.

The argument propounded in the law review article adopted by appellant as the basis for seeking a reversal of the lower courts' decisions denying her demand for a jury trial in general sessions court relates wholly to forcible entry and detainer actions. The writer leans heavily on the United States Supreme Court case of Pernell v. Southall Realty, supra. The article concludes with the statement that "[t]he decision in Pernell clearly establishes the principle that the Seventh Amendment preserves the right to trial by jury in all actions to recover possession of real property. Although the Seventh Amendment does not apply to the states, the analogous provision in the Tennessee Constitution should be given the same interpretation. Consequently, either party to an F.E.D. action should be afforded the right of trial by jury in the court in which the action is filed, and the statute giving general sessions court the right to try F.E.D. cases without a jury should be declared unconstitutional. Notwithstanding this, it is recognized that there is presently no machinery for jury trials in most of the general sessions courts in Tennessee and to require such a system to be instituted or, alternatively, to try all F.E.D. ...