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State law and the right to a jury trial in trust litigation: Blurring the line between law and equity
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In an action at law that is litigated in a state court, the parties may be entitled to a jury trial. Generally
not the case with an equitable action. Thus, as a general rule there is no right to a jury trial in proceedings
concerning the internal affairs of trusts. Recall that the trust relationship itself is a creature of equity. An
action against a trustee for breach of trust is historically an equitable action, and, therefore, one in which
there is no right to a jury trial. If the trustee, however, is under a duty to pay money immediately and
unconditionally to a beneficiary, the payment may be enforced against the trustee in an action at law. In
that case, the parties may have a right to a jury trial. See Rest. (Third) of Trusts §95 cmt. a. These situations
are unlike a suit in equity to compel a trustee to restore misappropriated money, or a misappropriated
chattel, that is to remain an asset of the trust. Otherwise, a damage award against a trustee is likely to be an
equitable remedy, and in any case the availability of a legal remedy ought not to oust the jurisdiction of the
court in equity to compel delivery of the money. Occasionally, actions at law have been maintained by
beneficiaries to compel trustees to disgorge items of tangible personal property, although such a remedy is
actually an equitable one.
Under Texas law, the right to a jury trial extends to disputed issues of fact in equitable, as well as legal,
proceedings. See §10 of article 5 of the Texas Constitution. The discretionary meting out of equitable
remedies, however, is still the exclusive domain of the equity judges. Whether a plaintiff-beneficiary’s
hands are “clean,” for example, is for a court, not some lay jury, to decide. On the other hand, whether there
was subjective donative intent on the part of a purported settlor is an appropriate fact-based question for a
jury. The pivotal inquiry is whether the disputed matter is a question of fact appropriate for a lay jury to
decide or a question of equitable discretion that should only be decided by a court. When it comes to trust
litigation, un-blending the questions of fact and the questions of equitable discretion is easier said than
done.
The practical problem with extending to litigants in equity disputes the right to a jury trial is that the
typical equity issue is a law-fact hybrid not easily transmogrified into a clean fact question. Take a UTC
§412 trust-modification proceeding. Were the circumstances now prevailing unanticipated by the settlor
and are the trust’s purposes now impossible to fulfill? Each question has a heavy law component to it. Each
calls for a parsing of the terms of the trust instrument in light of the circumstances surrounding its execution,
as well as a general appreciation of what equity is all about. Jurisprudential context here is critical. Still, in
Texas such questions are being put to lay juries.
Under the UPC, in any proceeding involving a trust where the parties otherwise would have no right to
a jury trial, the court may call a jury to decide any issue of fact, in which case its verdict is advisory only.
See UPC §1-306(b). The court may do so even if the parties have waived their rights, if any, to a jury trial.
As to the right to a jury trial in equity cases in the federal courts, see §7.1 of Loring and Rounds: A
Trustee’s Handbook (2022), the relevant portion of which section is set forth in Appendix A below. The
assessment of punitive damages in trust litigation is also where the line between law and equity can get
blurry. See generally §7.2.3.2 of the Handbook in this regard, the relevant portion of which section is set
forth in Appendix B below. As to the intersection of law and equity when it comes to “remedying wrongful
interferences in the making of gifts” see the link to my JDSUPRA June 5, 2022 posting in the list of
postings below. The Handbook is available for purchase at https://law-
store.wolterskluwer.com/s/product/loring-rounds-a-trustees-handbook-2022e-
misb/01t4R00000OVWE4QAP.
