Dairy Queen, Inc. v. Wood

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted a motion to strike petitioner’s demand for a trial by jury in an action now pending before it on the alternative grounds that either the action was “purely equitable” or, if not purely equitable, whatever legal issues that were raised were “incidental” to equitable issues, and, in either case, no right to trial by jury existed.1 The petitioner then sought mandamus in the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to compel the district judge to vacate this order. When that court denied this request without opinion,…