Seventh Amendment Not Incorporated; No New York Jury Right in EMT License Revocation Proceedings

1. Introduction

In Ball v New York State Dept. of Health (2026 NY Slip Op 02494 [3d Dept 2026]), the Appellate Division, Third Department reversed a Supreme Court order that had (i) declared EMT Justin Ball entitled to a civil jury trial in Supreme Court under the Seventh Amendment (and enjoined the Department of Health from proceeding inconsistently), and (ii) effectively stayed an ongoing administrative license-revocation matter.

The underlying dispute arose after the Department served Ball—an emergency medical technician—with a notice of hearing and statement of charges alleging multiple regulatory violations during a May 2024 emergency call. The Department sought sanctions authorized by the Public Health Law and implementing regulations, including fines and possible revocation of Ball’s EMT license. Rather than proceed to the administrative hearing, Ball filed a declaratory judgment action asserting jury-trial rights under the Seventh Amendment and NY Constitution article I, § 2.

The case squarely presented two questions: (1) whether the Seventh Amendment civil jury-trial right applies to state proceedings through Fourteenth Amendment incorporation; and (2) whether NY Constitution article I, § 2 independently guarantees a jury trial in an administrative EMT licensure discipline/revocation proceeding that may include civil penalties.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Third Department held that neither the Seventh Amendment nor NY Constitution article I, § 2 entitles Ball to a civil jury trial in his pending administrative EMT license revocation proceeding. The court emphasized that binding Supreme Court of the United States precedent—particularly Minneapolis & St. Louis R. Co. v Bombolis—holds the Seventh Amendment is not applicable to the states, and lower courts may not “renounce” such precedent.

On the state constitutional claim, the court concluded the proceeding is fundamentally regulatory and rooted in the State’s statutory licensure scheme (Public Health Law article 30; 10 NYCRR part 800), not a common-law action of the type that historically carried a jury right before 1777 (or by statute between 1777 and 1894). The order was reversed, a declaration entered against Ball’s claimed jury rights, and the Department’s motion to dismiss granted.

3. Analysis

3.1. Precedents Cited

A. Seventh Amendment non-incorporation and vertical stare decisis

  • Minneapolis & St. Louis R. Co. v Bombolis, 241 US 211 (1916)
    The controlling federal precedent. The Third Department treated Bombolis as dispositive for state courts: the Seventh Amendment “applies only to proceedings in courts of the United States” and “does not … govern … trials by jury in state courts.” This single holding drove reversal of Supreme Court’s incorporation analysis.

  • Walker v Sauvinet, 92 US 90 (1875)
    Reinforced the same principle: the Seventh Amendment does not constrain state civil jury practice.

  • McDonald v Chicago, 561 US 742 (2010)
    Supreme Court relied on a footnote in McDonald (765 n 13) to suggest incorporation was an “open question” because older cases spoke in Privileges or Immunities terms. The Third Department rejected that inference, pointing out McDonald expressly lists the Seventh Amendment as among the “handful” of unincorporated protections.

  • Thomas v Humboldt County, California, 607 US ___, 146 S Ct 27 (2025) (Gorsuch, J., statement respecting denial of cert)
    Cited not as a holding but as confirmation that Bombolis remains “on the books,” underscoring that any reconsideration must come from the Supreme Court of the United States, not lower courts.

  • Rodriguez de Quijas v Shearson/American Express, Inc., 490 US 477 (1989) and Tenet v Doe, 544 US 1 (2005)
    These cases supplied the opinion’s central methodological constraint: when a Supreme Court precedent “directly controls,” lower courts must follow it even if later doctrinal trends cast doubt on its reasoning, leaving overruling to the Supreme Court. This principle was used to label Supreme Court’s incorporation analysis an impermissible “intrusion” on the Supreme Court’s prerogative.

  • Additional federal citations (Timbs v Indiana, Osborn v Haley, City of Monterey v Del Monte Dunes at Monterey, Ltd., Gasperini v Center for Humanities, Inc., Curtis v Loether, Rivera v Centro MÉdico de Turabo, Inc., Matter of Jacobs) functioned as confirmatory authorities that federal courts continue to treat the Seventh Amendment as unincorporated.

B. Interdepartmental stare decisis in New York (Footnote 2)

  • Shoback v Broome Obstetrics & Gynecology, P.C., 184 AD3d 1000 (3d Dept 2020), Mountain View Coach Lines v Storms, 102 AD2d 663 (2d Dept 1984), and People v Turner, 5 NY3d 476 (2005)
    The Third Department added an independent state-law error: absent controlling Third Department or Court of Appeals authority, Supreme Court should follow precedent from another Department.

  • Matter of Serby v City of New York, 215 AD3d 438 (1st Dept 2023), Shah v 20 E. 64th St., LLC, 198 AD3d 23 (1st Dept 2021), and Matter of Department of Hous. Preserv. & Dev. of City of N.Y. v Deka Realty Corp., 208 AD2d 37 (2d Dept 1995)
    These decisions were cited as the relevant interdepartmental precedent recognizing the Seventh Amendment does not apply in state court, further undermining Supreme Court’s ruling even aside from federal vertical stare decisis.

C. New York constitutional jury-trial scope and licensure proceedings

  • Matter of DES Mkt. Share Litig., 79 NY2d 299 (1992) and Matter of State of New York v Myron P., 86 AD3d 26 (3d Dept 2011), affd 20 NY3d 206 (2012)
    These cases set the governing framework for NY Constitution article I, § 2: the jury right is preserved only for (1) cases historically triable by jury at common law before 1777 and (2) cases for which statutes extended the jury right between 1777 and 1894. The Third Department applied that historical-analogy test and found it unmet.

  • Colon v Lisk, 153 NY 188 (1897)
    Invoked by Ball for the proposition that civil penalties/punitive civil liability resemble common-law tort concepts that typically involved a jury. The court treated this as beside the point because the proceeding’s source and object were regulatory licensure enforcement.

  • Matter of Smith, 10 Wend 449 (NY Sup Ct of Judicature 1833) (and supporting historical authorities: People ex rel. Gray v Med. Soc. of Erie County, 24 Barb 570 (Sup Ct 1857); People ex rel. Thacher v New York Commercial Assn., 18 Abb Prac 271 (Sup Ct, NY County 1864))
    These cases supplied the key doctrinal move: proceedings regarding professional membership/licensure are not chiefly about “punishment,” but about “purge of an unworthy member” to preserve the profession’s integrity; accordingly, the constitutional jury guarantee does not attach in the same way it does to common-law punitive suits.

D. Jarkesy and the opinion’s careful limitation

  • SEC v Jarkesy, 603 US 109 (2024)
    Ball argued that because the Department sought fines, Jarkesy suggested a common-law jury entitlement. The Third Department declined to extend that reasoning here, emphasizing (i) Seventh Amendment incorporation is foreclosed for state proceedings under Bombolis, and (ii) the factual and structural differences between federal SEC enforcement and state professional licensure regulation. The court expressly avoided “speculat[ing]” how licensing facts might affect a Jarkesy-type analysis in a different posture.

  • The court cited additional jury-trial framework authorities in this discussion: Chauffeurs, Teamsters and Helpers, Local No. 391 v Terry, 494 US 558 (1990) and N.L.R.B. v Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 US 1 (1937), plus lower federal decisions, to illustrate the complexity of mapping administrative remedies onto “common-law” analogues—complexity the court refused to reach given the controlling non-incorporation rule.

3.2. Legal Reasoning

  1. Federal constitutional claim (Seventh Amendment): binding non-incorporation controls.
    The court treated Minneapolis & St. Louis R. Co. v Bombolis and Walker v Sauvinet as directly governing: whatever modern incorporation doctrine might suggest, lower courts cannot revisit whether the Seventh Amendment binds the states. Supreme Court’s reliance on the historical “pre-selective-incorporation” vintage of those cases was rejected as a basis for disregarding them.

  2. Institutional constraint: lower courts may not anticipate Supreme Court overrulings.
    Using Rodriguez de Quijas v Shearson/American Express, Inc. and Tenet v Doe, the court emphasized hierarchical judicial discipline: even if a precedent “appears to rest on reasons rejected” elsewhere, it must be followed until the Supreme Court itself overrules it. The opinion frames incorporation of the Seventh Amendment as a question that must be decided, if at all, only by the Supreme Court after its own stare decisis analysis.

  3. State constitutional claim (NY Const art I, § 2): historical analog fails.
    Applying Matter of DES Mkt. Share Litig. and Matter of State of New York v Myron P., the court asked whether this administrative EMT licensure discipline/revocation case matches (a) a pre-1777 common-law jury-triable cause or (b) a statutory jury entitlement created between 1777 and 1894. It held the claim fails because the matter is grounded in the State’s statutory and regulatory licensing regime—Public Health Law article 30 and 10 NYCRR part 800—authorizing administrative hearings and sanctions including suspension/revocation and fines.

  4. Licensure proceedings are regulatory “purging,” not classic punitive adjudication.
    The court reinforced the regulatory character by analogizing to historic proceedings by professional bodies as recognized in Matter of Smith, emphasizing that the object is maintaining professional integrity rather than punishing in the common-law sense that typically triggers a jury right.

3.3. Impact

  • Closes a state-court pathway to Seventh Amendment jury demands in administrative licensure matters.
    The decision squarely reaffirms (and applies) the rule that the Seventh Amendment does not apply to state proceedings, preventing litigants from using incorporation arguments to transfer state administrative enforcement into jury trials in Supreme Court.

  • Strengthens agency enforcement stability in professional licensing.
    By holding that NY Constitution article I, § 2 does not require juries in EMT licensure revocation proceedings, the court protects the administrative adjudication model authorized by Public Health Law § 12-a and 10 NYCRR 800.16(a), even where the agency also seeks fines.

  • Signals caution about importing SEC v Jarkesy into state licensure systems.
    The opinion does not decide how Jarkesy might apply in other settings; it highlights that professional licensure regulation is materially different from the SEC’s enforcement scheme and that, in New York state cases, Bombolis blocks Seventh Amendment incorporation arguments at the threshold.

  • Reinforces interdepartmental stare decisis obligations for trial courts.
    Footnote 2 provides a practical directive: where the Third Department (or Court of Appeals) has not spoken, Supreme Court should follow a relevant holding from another Department rather than treat the issue as open.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

  • Selective incorporation: the doctrine by which many (but not all) federal Bill of Rights protections have been applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. This case holds the Seventh Amendment civil jury-trial right remains unincorporated under binding Supreme Court precedent.

  • Vertical stare decisis: lower courts must follow controlling decisions of higher courts even if the lower court thinks the higher court might change its mind later.

  • NY Constitution article I, § 2 “historical test”: New York preserves the right to jury trial only for categories of cases that historically had that right at common law before 1777 (or were later given it by statute in a specific historical period). Modern statutory administrative proceedings generally do not qualify unless they closely match those historic jury-triable actions.

  • Administrative licensure discipline: a regulatory process used by the state to decide whether a professional may keep a license. The court characterizes this as protecting the public and the integrity of the profession, not as a substitute for a common-law damages lawsuit.

5. Conclusion

Ball v New York State Dept. of Health establishes a clear, two-part rule for New York administrative licensure enforcement: (1) state courts must treat the Seventh Amendment civil jury-trial right as unincorporated and therefore unavailable in state proceedings under Minneapolis & St. Louis R. Co. v Bombolis; and (2) NY Constitution article I, § 2 does not extend a jury-trial guarantee to EMT license revocation proceedings conducted under the Public Health Law’s regulatory scheme, even where the agency seeks fines, because such matters are not analogous to pre-1777 common-law jury cases.

The decision is also a pointed reaffirmation of judicial role boundaries: trial courts may not reopen Supreme Court incorporation questions or anticipate doctrinal shifts; they must apply controlling precedent and leave revision to the Supreme Court (and, in New York, respect interdepartmental stare decisis where applicable).