Granfinanciera, S.A. v. Nordberg

Granfinanciera, S.A. v. Nordberg,, is a 1989 United States Supreme Court case concerning the Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution. In a majority opinion by William J. Brennan, Jr., the Court held that the Seventh Amendment guaranteed individuals the right to a jury trial if they are sued by a bankruptcy trustee seeking the recovery of an allegedly fraudulent monetary transfer, provided that those individuals had not previously submitted a claim against the bankruptcy estate. The decision emphasized that a legal action seeking the recovery of money from someone who allegedly defrauded them would have been litigated at law, rather than in a court of equity, in 18th-century England; it therefore concluded that such an action was a "sui[t] at common law" for which the Seventh Amendment required a jury trial. However, the majority also emphasized that this holding only applied if "Congress has not permissibly assigned resolution of the claim to a non-Article III adjudicative body that does not use a jury as factfinder".