Monolith Portland Midwest Company, a Corporation v. Reconstruction Finance Corporation, a Corporation

Attorneys often give high rhetorical praise to the function of a jury under the common law system — and then, when it suits their clients’ purposes, in order to defeat an adversary’s demand for a jury trial they invoke “Governmental immunity”, “lack of statutory right”, “inappropriateness”, etc.

In the instant case, we do not propose to lend ourselves to any such ambivaluation of that potent instrument of Anglo-American law.

Nor will the fact that we are urged to do so by counsel for a Government-owned corporation cause us to overlook the historic and traditional purposes of a jury trial.

1. Statement of the Case

Arising out of a war contractor’s claim for monetary compensation for a Government contract terminated by the appellee, the present controversy has been before State or Federal courts for more than a decade.

A full statement of the case and of the facts, with the appropriate Federal citations, is to be found in the opinion of the Court below, D.C., 128 F.Supp. 824, 830-837 , which preceded the judgment from which the present appeal was taken. Since this protracted litigation already has elicited three reported opinions from the same District Judge, the Honorable…