There's been a lot of misinformation on this point.
The short answer is that this civil action is equitable in nature because the damages involve unjust enrichment and there is therefore no right to a jury trial under NY law.
>>>“The AG checked off non-jury, and there was no motion for a jury,” said the judge,
reported Yahoo! and ABC News, among other outlets.
Had Trump’s lawyers made a request for one, he said, he would have denied it because James sought equitable relief that, under New York’s constitution, precludes a jury trial.<<<
The equitable relief being sought is handled in a bench trial, the judge said during proceedings this week.
www.legaldive.com
Many commentators said that Habba F'd up royally by not filing a request for a jury trial, but this criticism strikes me as misplaced.
FWIW, the U.S. legal system is largely based on the English legal system, which had courts of law and courts of equity. In the U.S., a single court can try cases that are equitable or legal in nature (a few states have courts that are exceptions to this general rule). As a practical matter, the distinction between legal and equitable causes of action has become blurred, but the right to a trial by jury is one example where it can make a difference.
>>>A court of equity is a type of court with the power to grant remedies other than
monetary damages. These remedies include
injunctions,
writs, or
specific performance among others. Traditionally, English courts followed a distinction between
courts of law, which could grant exclusively monetary damages, and courts of equity, which could not. The
Court of Chancery was an example of an early English court of equity.
This distinction between the two types of courts has now largely been dissolved. In the United States, the adoption of
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1938 gave courts a combined
jurisdiction over matters of law and equity.
Bankruptcy courts and certain other state courts (in
Delaware,
Mississippi,
New Jersey and
Tennessee) can be considered as a remaining examples of courts of equity.<<<
www.law.cornell.edu
>>>
However, the courts retained the traditional distinction between law and equity for purposes of determining when there was a constitutional right to trial by jury, which led to some difficulty.
The Supreme Court resolved the difficulty by stressing the fundamental nature of the jury trial right and protecting it against diminution through resort to equitable principles.<<<
www.law.cornell.edu
>>>The Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial applies on the federal level. Unlike the Sixth Amendment,
states are not required to guarantee civil trials under the Seventh Amendment. Nonetheless, most states have the right to a civil trial in specific cases to some degree in their state constitutions.<<<
www.law.cornell.edu
