No Right To Jury Trial For Dodd-Frank Whistleblowers

A district court has ruled that an employee who sues under the whistleblower provision of Dodd-Frank has no right to a jury trial. The court based its conclusion on the theory that the issue at hand was a question of equity, not legal damages, along with the fact that Congress explicitly granted the right to a jury trial in an arguably similar law, Sarbanes-Oxley, and therefore presumably it intended not to do so for Dodd-Frank. McGuireWoods attorney Benjamin Christenson considers the implications of a case that’s probably the first to address the issue, and one that is essentially good news for corporate defendants.