730
Opinion of Scalia, J.
Bernhard, 396 U. S. 531, 533 (1970) ("The Seventh Amendment . . . entitle[s] the parties to a jury trial in actions for damages to a person or property . . .").
A number of lower courts have held that a § 1983 damages action—without reference to what might have been the most analogous common-law remedy for violation of the particular federal right at issue—must be tried to a jury. See, e. g., Caban-Wheeler v. Elsea, 71 F. 3d 837, 844 (CA11 1996); Perez-Serrano v. DeLeon-Velez, 868 F. 2d 30, 32-33 (CA1 1989); Laskaris v. Thornburgh, 733 F. 2d 260, 264 (CA3 1984); Segarra v. McDade, 706 F. 2d 1301, 1304 (CA4 1983); Dolence v. Flynn, 628 F. 2d 1280, 1282 (CA10 1980); Amburgey v. Cassady, 507 F. 2d 728, 730 (CA6 1974); Brisk v. Miami Beach, 726 F. Supp. 1305, 1311-1312 (SD Fla. 1989); Ruth Anne M. v. Alvin Independent School Dist., 532 F. Supp. 460, 475 (SD Tex. 1982); Mason v. Melendez, 525 F. Supp. 270, 282 (WD Wis. 1981); Cook v. Cox, 357 F. Supp. 120, 124- 125, and n. 4 (ED Va. 1973).
In sum, it seems to me entirely clear that a § 1983 cause of action for damages is a tort action for which jury trial would have been provided at common law. The right of jury trial is not eliminated, of course, by virtue of the fact that, under our modern unified system, the equitable relief of an injunction is also sought. See, e. g., Dairy Queen, Inc. v. Wood, 369 U. S. 469, 479 (1962); Scott v. Neely, 140 U. S. 106, 109-110 (1891). Nor—to revert to the point made in Part I of this discussion—is the tort nature of the cause of action, and its entitlement to jury trial, altered by the fact that another cause of action was available (an inverse-condemnation suit) to obtain the same relief. Even if that were an equitable cause of action—or, as Justice Souter asserts, a peculiar legal cause of action to which the right to jury trial did not attach—the nature of the § 1983 suit would no more be transformed by it than, for example, a common-law fraud action would be deprived of the right to jury trial by the fact that
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