436
Opinion of the Court
¶ 59.08[6], at 59-177 to 59-185 (same).19 We now approve
this line of decisions, and thus make explicit what Justice Stewart thought implicit in our Grunenthal disposition: "[N]othing in the Seventh Amendment . . . precludes appellate review of the trial judge's denial of a motion to set aside [a jury verdict] as excessive." 393 U. S., at 164 (Stewart, J., dissenting) (internal quotation marks and footnote omitted).20
C
In Byrd, the Court faced a one-or-the-other choice: trial by judge as in state court, or trial by jury according to the federal practice.21 In the case before us, a choice of that
19 Justice Scalia disagrees. Ready to "destroy the uniformity of federal practice" in this regard, cf. post, at 467, he would render a judgment described as "astonishing" by the very authority upon which he relies. Compare post, at 460, with 11 C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2820, p. 212 (2d ed. 1995) ("it would be astonishing if the Court, which has passed up three opportunities to do so, should ultimately reject" the unanimously held view of the courts of appeals).
20 If the meaning of the Seventh Amendment were fixed at 1791, our civil juries would remain, as they unquestionably were at common law, "twelve good men and true," 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *349; see Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U. S. 1, 13 (1899) (" 'Trial by jury,' in the primary and usual sense of the term at the common law and in the American constitutions . . . is a trial by a jury of twelve men."). But see Col-grove v. Battin, 413 U. S. 149, 160 (1973) (six-member jury for civil trials satisfies Seventh Amendment's guarantee). Procedures we have regarded as compatible with the Seventh Amendment, although not in conformity with practice at common law when the Amendment was adopted, include new trials restricted to the determination of damages, Gasoline Products Co. v. Champlin Refining Co., 283 U. S. 494 (1931), and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(b)'s motion for judgment as a matter of law, see 9A C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2522, pp. 244-246 (2d ed. 1995). See also Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, 439 U. S. 322, 335-337 (1979) (issue preclusion absent mutuality of parties does not violate Seventh Amendment, although common law as it existed in 1791 permitted issue preclusion only when there was mutuality).
21 The two-trial rule posited by Justice Scalia, post, at 467, surely would be incompatible with the existence of "[t]he federal system [as] an independent system for administering justice," Byrd v. Blue Ridge Rural
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