Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California

The short answer is that there is no right to a jury trial and the standard of review on an appeal is whether the trial court abused its discretion, not whether it made an error.

The long answer requires describing the history of courts of law versus courts of chancery (which came also to be referred to as courts of equity) that arose in late Medieval and Renaissance England. You can find the extended version here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_of_Chancery The two types of courts carried over to the 13 original states along with most English law in effect at the time of the Revolution (since you can't really start a whole legal system from scratch). The British merged the courts in the 1850's, and all U.S. states that ever had separate courts have also merged them and/or abolished the courts of equity, except Mississippi, Tennessee and most notably Delaware (which is why big corporations incorporate there, to be governed by the management-favorable Chancery Court when it comes to high-stakes corporate legal issues such as hostile take-overs and shareholder suits). Some of the distinctions between the two courts, however, have been maintained for various reasons. As a result, even though we only have courts of law in California, certain types of cases and/or procedural rules are still treated as if they are "in equity." That means they are handled under the legal principals of the old courts of equity, rather than the common law. The two largest areas of the law that are handled in whole or in part as "cases in equity" are Probate and Family Law.

It means you get equitable remedies, such as injunctions or restitution orders, not legal damages.