Whether a claim for legal restitution triggers the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial and whether a litigant may validly waive a constitutional right when binding circuit precedent forecloses its exercise

This Court has held that equitable restitution can be awarded without a jury but is capped at “a defendant’s net profits,” Liu v. SEC , 591 U.S. 71, 87 (2020), whereas legal relief may exceed net profits but triggers the right to a jury trial, SEC v. Jarkesy , 603 U.S. 109, 122-25 (2024). Despite that clear dichotomy, the Ninth Circuit holds that claims for “legal” restitution in excess of net profits do not “trigger[] the right to a jury trial.” App.7. That aberrant rule, which the district court here invoked to impose $134 million in “restitution” for a loan program that lost money, “dilutes the jury trial right” and “puts [the Ninth Circuit] at odds with” this Court and circuits that faithfully follow its precedents. App.19, 27 (Nelson, J., concurring). The court of appeals’ effort to sidestep this clear conflict by deeming petitioners to have “waived” their jury-trial rights “during the initial district court proceedings,” App.2, only makes matters worse, as it flouts this Court’s teachings and implicates another circuit split. Most circuits sensibly hold that a party cannot waive a right that is foreclosed by clear circuit precedent. But the court here held that petitioners waived jury-trial rights that do not exist in the Ninth Circuit—and, by so holding, managed to preserve that erroneous and rightsdenying precedent. The questions presented are: 1. Whether a claim for legal restitution triggers the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. 2. Whether a litigant may validly waive a constitutional right at a time when binding circuit precedent clearly forecloses any exercise of that right.