These are some of the government agencies denying the right to a jury trial
The right to a jury trial is one of the core tenets of our United States legal system. Its significance to the Founding Fathers was such that King George’s denial of jury trials was included as a grievance in the Declaration of Independence and served as an impetus for revolution. Later, the Constitution’s Framers carefully safeguarded this right in both the Sixth and Seventh Amendments.
Yet, even with jury trials guaranteed in the Constitution, many regulatory agencies routinely deprive the jury-trial right when they enforce alleged legal violations—even when the agencies seek to restrict one’s “core” private rights, that is, the rights to liberty and property. In these situations, individuals and businesses must defend themselves before agencies’ in-house tribunals that operate outside of the constitutionally sanctioned judicial system.
Agency tribunals don’t follow the same rules normal courts do. These tribunals use administrative law judges (ALJs), many of them employed by the agencies themselves. Agencies also write their own rules of procedure and evidence. And there are no juries.
If you want to appeal an ALJ’s decision, your appeal goes straight to the leadership of the agency prosecuting you. The process can take years. Only after the ALJ and the agency have both ruled against you—and after you’ve spent time and money clawing your way through the administrative process—will you finally be allowed to “petition” a real, independent court for review. But even then, the odds are stacked against you because the court must presumptively accept the facts as determined by the agency—even though the agency may accept hearsay and other evidence that a court of law would never allow.
Unsurprisingly, when one agency gives itself this much power to act as judge, jury, and appellate tribunal, the individual is likely to lose (and often does). Here are a few examples of agencies that have denied individuals jury trial through unconstitutional agency adjudication.
Securities and Exchange Commission
In 2013, investment adviser George Jarkesy found himself facing security-fraud allegations made by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Instead of bringing its claims in a court of law, before an independent judge and jury, the SEC held an in-house tribunal overseen by an SEC-employed ALJ without a jury.
It should come as no shock that the SEC-employed judge ruled in favor of the SEC’s enforcement lawyers. When George appealed, the SEC commissioners upheld their ALJ’s decision.
Nothing about this system is fair or in line with constitutional safeguards. The SEC blatantly denied George’s right to a jury trial and further barred him from appealing his case to an actual U.S. court. George’s story had a happy ending. After taking his case to the Supreme Court in 2024, the justices agreed that the SEC’s agency adjudication process had denied George his Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial.
Consumer Product Safety Commission
Jamie Leach’s family business, Leachco, is dedicated to helping parents keep their babies safe with products like the Podster infant lounger. Even though every Podster comes with explicit instructions and warnings that the lounger should be used only when infants are awake and supervised by an attending adult, two respective caretakers ignored these warnings. Tragically, three infants lost their lives because of unsafe sleeping practices.
Nonetheless the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) blamed Leachco for the caregivers’ mistakes. The CPSC claimed that the product itself was defective, and it brought an in-house action against Leachco. The administrative trial was held before an ALJ in the CPSC’s offices in Bethesda, Maryland—far away from Leachco’s offices in Ada, Oklahoma. Like other agencies, the CPSC has its own modified set of rules for procedure and evidence.
Represented by PLF, though, Leachco prevailed before the ALJ—who, it should be noted, is not an employee of the CPSC. The ALJ ruled that the Podster is not defective. But the CPSC’s enforcement lawyers have appealed—to the CPSC commissioners. No final decision has been made. And Leachco’s administrative odyssey continues.
Leachco also argued that the entire CPSC process violated Leachco’s rights to due process and a jury trial. Should the CPSC commissioners reverse the ALJ’s decision, Leachco will take the constitutional issues all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary.
Department of Labor
David Wulf is a Utah-based movie producer who has produced 42 films since 2010. David’s work on projects ranging from TV movies to Netflix to the Big Screen had allowed him not only to build his own career but to provide jobs to hundreds of Utahns who work as cast and crew members.
During the first day on set for a new project, union organizers showed up and rallied the film’s driving crew to strike, bombarding David with last-minute demands for a production scheduled to last only a few weeks. At the union’s instigation, David’s commercial drivers didn’t just walk off set, they also drove equipment trucks away from the filming site to the parking lot of the hotel where the drivers were staying—even though the trucks and equipment belonged to David or were being leased by David for the production. The drivers later picketed filming sites—on private property—and disrupted production.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) later filed an administrative complaint against David’s film production company and accused it of “unfair labor practices.” As with George and Jamie, David was hauled into an in-house tribunal, without a jury, and without the ability to appeal to an independent judicial body.
Through this agency adjudication process, the NLRB-employed ALJ ruled for the NLRB’s enforcement lawyers, and the NLRB upheld its ALJ’s ruling. Pacific Legal Foundation is now helping David fight back against this unconstitutional process that denied him one of his most basic civil liberties.
Arizona Corporation Commission
EFG America, a Mesa-based rubber recycling company founded in 2012 by Douglas Fimrite, developed what it believed to be a proprietary chemical process to recycle waste rubber more efficiently than competitors. To raise capital for the new business, Douglas sold securities to investors. In April 2024, the Arizona Corporation Commission filed a complaint claiming EFG sold the securities without proper registration under the Arizona Securities Act.
Like its federal counterparts, the Commission brought its enforcement action before its own in-house administrative law judge without a jury. Douglas asked the Commission’s administrative law judge to transfer his case to a state court of law so his case would be heard by an independent judge and jury. The ALJ denied Douglas’s request.
Pacific Legal Foundation is helping Douglas fight to defend his right to a jury trial.
Ending agency adjudication
The stories above highlight just a few examples of agencies that use in-house administrative law tribunals to go after individuals and deprive them of their right to a fair trial, including the right to a jury trial. Unfortunately, many federal and state agencies enforce laws and regulations through in-house tribunals and thereby deny accused parties their right to a hearing before independent decision-makers—a judge and jury.
Governments do not get to ignore constitutional protections whenever it is convenient for them. If an agency thinks someone has broken the law, it should make its case in a real court with an independent judge and a jury, as the Constitution promises.
Pacific Legal Foundation is dedicated to ending this agency adjudication process and restoring the right to a jury trial.
