What happened
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up Thomas v. Humboldt County, leaving in place a longstanding rule that the Seventh Amendment’s civil jury trial right is not enforceable against the states, but Justice Gorsuch used the denial to urge a future confrontation with that precedent.
Writing separately, Gorsuch agreed the court should deny review because the case had vehicle problems. But he said the 1916 decision in Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad Co. v. Bombolis is increasingly hard to square with modern incorporation doctrine, adding that “Bombolis warrants a second look.”
Bombolis held that the Seventh Amendment’s civil jury guarantee does not bind the states. Gorsuch described that rule as a relic of an era when the court rejected the broader idea that the Bill of Rights could apply to state governments through the Fourteenth Amendment.
The statement said that position has been overtaken by later doctrine applying many federal constitutional protections against the states, including rights under the First, Second, Fifth and Eighth Amendments. Against that backdrop, Gorsuch asked why the Seventh Amendment should be treated differently.
Gorsuch also emphasized the historical importance of civil juries, pointing to founding-era and Reconstruction-era evidence that the right was widely protected. He said the continued force of Bombolis creates practical consequences where state and local agencies pursue civil penalties without the same jury-trial constraints that apply in comparable federal enforcement actions.
The denial does not change the law: Bombolis remains binding unless the court takes up the question in a future case. But Gorsuch’s statement marks the issue as one to watch, especially in disputes involving state or local civil-penalty regimes and claims that litigants are entitled to a jury before being penalized.