Secretary, U.S. Department of Labor v. Robert N. Preston

NEWSOM, Circuit Judge:

It is hornbook law that rights of all kinds'—even constitutional ones—can be waived. For instance, a criminal defendant might for one reason or another elect to waive his .Fourth Amendment freedom from unreasonable searches,. his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, or his Sixth Amendment right to the assistance of counsel. In the same way, a civil litigant can waive his Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial or his right, rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment, to be free from overbroad assertions of personal jurisdiction. So too, a sovereign State may…