742
Opinion of Souter, J.
This recognition may underlie the fact that the plurality's absence-of-liability-issue reasoning for distinguishing direct and inverse condemnation fails to resonate through the cases holding that direct actions carry no jury right or commenting on the absence of juries in such cases. While the plurality cites an opinion of Justice Baldwin, sitting on Circuit, for its position, ante, at 713 (citing Bonaparte v. Camden & Amboy R. Co., 3 F. Cas. 821, 829 (No. 1,617) (CC NJ 1830)), this citation leaves the reader with a rather skewed perspective on the diversity of rationales underlying early state cases in which the right of a direct condemnee to a jury trial was considered and denied. Several courts rested on the fact that proceedings to secure compensation were in the nature of suits against the sovereign, and thus the legislature could qualify and condition the right to bring such suits, at least to the extent of providing that they be conducted without a jury. See, e. g., Ligat v. Commonwealth, 19 Pa. 456, 460 (1852) ("A sovereign state is not liable to an action at law, against her consent; and the right of trial by jury has, therefore, no existence in such a case"); Pennsylvania R. Co. v. First German Lutheran Congregation of Pittsburgh, 53 Pa. 445, 449 (1866) ("In taking private property for its road [the railroad corporation] exercises a part of the sovereign power of the state . . . [and] the right of trial by jury has never been held to belong to the citizen himself in proceedings by the state under her powers of eminent domain"). See also McElrath v. United States, 102 U. S. 426, 440 (1880). Just as significantly, the plurality's new rationale is absent from any of our precedents, including those underlying the Reynolds decision.5
5 See n. 1, supra. Moreover, if presence of a liability issue were crucial, then the jury right presumably would be lost in every tort case with liability conceded, which goes to trial on damages alone. Such, of course, is not the practice. See, e. g., Blazar v. Perkins, 463 A. 2d 203, 207 (R. I. 1983) ("The fact that prior to trial, defendants admitted liability, thereby removing one issue from the consideration of the jury, does not alter the
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