Judge says NY Mets case over Madoff deserves jury

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan rejected the owners' contention that the Seventh Amendment does not give trustee Irving Picard a right to have a jury rather than the judge decide the case from the bench. He said courts must "jealously guard" litigants' Seventh Amendment rights.

Picard accused Mets owners, including Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, of fraudulently taking money out of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, which the trustee is liquidating.

Rakoff rejected the Mets' argument that Picard did not have the right to a jury trial because he, like Madoff's firm itself, could not bring fraudulent transfer claims.

"This confuses the right to a jury trial with a right to bring a claim," Rakoff wrote. "(Madoff's firm) might well be barred from bringing fraudulent conveyance claims on the facts of this case; but if it could bring such claims, it would have a right to a jury trial on those claims."

A Mets spokesman declined to comment. Rakoff has set a March 19, 2012 trial date.