Many real estate agreements-particularly loan documents-contain waivers of the constitutional right to a jury trial. Apparently some parties, usually lenders and other large institutional players, fear that juries will harbor some prejudice against them. But will a court really enforce a waiver of your constitutional right to a jury?
A common law school teaching method is to discuss the law in three different contexts: (1) the majority approach, (2) the minority approach, and (3) the California approach. Nowhere is California's legal peculiarity more on display than in the context of contractual jury trial waivers. Contrary to most states, California considers contractual pre-dispute jury waivers unenforceable.
Read the article here.