Illinois Official Reports

Appellate Court

Hansen-Runge v. Illinois Central R.R. Co., 2020 IL App (1st) 190383

Appellate Court 

Caption

AMBER HANSEN-RUNGE, as Personal Representative of the Estate 

of Alfred Hansen, Deceased, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ILLINOIS 

CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY, Defendant-Appellant.

District & No. First District, Sixth Division 

No. 1-19-0383

Filed October 16, 2020

Decision Under 

Review

Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County, No. 18-L-740; the 

Hon. Christopher E. Lawler, Judge, presiding.

Judgment Reversed and remanded with directions.

Counsel on

Appeal

Kevin M. Forde and Joanne R. Driscoll, of Forde Law Offices LLP, 

and Colleen Konicek and Elizabeth O. Bryant, of Fletcher & Sippel 

LLC, both of Chicago, and Thomas R. Peters and Marl R. Kurz, of 

Boyle Brasher LLC, of Belleville, for appellant.

Paul J. Napoli, Timothy P. Hulla, and Wilson D. Sikes, of Napoli 

Shkolnik PLLC, of Edwardsville, for appellee.
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Panel JUSTICE GRIFFIN delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

Presiding Justice Mikva and Justice Connors concurred in the 

judgment and opinion.

OPINION

¶ 1 This appeal calls for us to review the circuit court’s decision on a motion to dismiss based 

on an interstate application of the doctrine of forum non conveniens. Defendant brought the 

motion, arguing that the now-deceased plaintiff’s home county of Black Hawk County, Iowa,

was the most appropriate forum for this dispute, as opposed to Cook County, Illinois, where 

the plaintiff filed the case. The trial court denied the motion. We conclude that a consideration 

of the relevant public and private interest factors demonstrates that the alternative, out-of-state 

forum is strongly favored, and accordingly, we reverse.

¶ 2 I. BACKGROUND

¶ 3 Plaintiff Alfred Hansen brought this case against his former employer, defendant Illinois 

Central Railroad Company (Illinois Central). After the case was filed, Mr. Hansen passed 

away. Amber Hansen-Runge (plaintiff) was appointed as Mr. Hansen’s personal representative 

and now serves as the plaintiff in this case.

¶ 4 Hansen brought this case, seeking damages for personal injury arising out of his 

employment. Hansen alleged in his complaint that, while he was employed as an electrician by 

Illinois Central, he was exposed to harmful chemicals and other toxins that caused him to 

develop a myelodysplastic syndrome. Plaintiff’s complaint contains claims under the federal 

Employers’ Liability Act (45 U.S.C. § 51 et seq. (2018)), the Locomotive Inspection Act (49 

U.S.C. § 20701 et seq. (2018)), and the Safety Appliance Act (49 U.S.C. § 20301 et seq.

(2018)). Plaintiff’s claims are grounded on the theory that Illinois Central created an unsafe 

workplace by allowing its employees to be exposed to such harmful substances.

¶ 5 In response to the complaint, Illinois Central moved to dismiss the case on grounds of 

forum non conveniens. In support of its motion, Illinois Central argued that Black Hawk 

County, Iowa, is the appropriate forum for this case, and it urged the court to dismiss this case 

in favor of that forum. 

¶ 6 Both in the trial court and on appeal, the parties identify relatively few facts relevant to 

conducting a forum non conveniens analysis in this case. A few of the important facts are as 

follows. Illinois Central does significant business in Cook County, Illinois. During the time 

that Hansen worked for Illinois Central, he lived in Janesville, Iowa, and worked in Waterloo, 

Iowa. Hansen never lived or worked in Illinois. Hansen was treated for his medical condition 

in Black Hawk County, Iowa, and his medical providers are located there. The witnesses that 

plaintiff has identified are predominately located in Iowa, but some are located in other 

noncontiguous states. None of the identified witnesses are located in Illinois. 

¶ 7 The trial court issued a written order disposing of the motion to dismiss. The trial court 

held that, in “the totality of the circumstances, *** the balance of factors do[es] not strongly

favor transfer.” (Emphasis in original.). Illinois Central filed a petition for leave to appeal, 

which we granted. The parties subsequently submitted briefs in support of their respective 
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positions.

¶ 8 II. ANALYSIS

¶ 9 The issue in this appeal is whether the trial court erred when it denied Illinois Central’s 

motion to dismiss on grounds of forum non conveniens. The doctrine of forum non conveniens

allows a court to decline to exercise jurisdiction over a case, even though it may have proper 

jurisdiction over the subject matter and the parties, “if it appears that another forum can better 

serve the convenience of the parties and the ends of justice.” Fennell v. Illinois Central R.R. 

Co., 2012 IL 113812, ¶ 12. The doctrine is founded in considerations of fundamental fairness 

and sensible and effective judicial administration. Gridley v. State Farm Mutual Automobile 

Insurance Co., 217 Ill. 2d 158, 169 (2005). 

¶ 10 In determining whether a case should be dismissed on grounds of forum non conveniens, 

courts must balance certain public and private interest factors. Id. at 169-70. The court must 

evaluate the totality of the circumstances in the case in determining whether the balance of 

factors “strongly favors dismissal.” Fennell, 2012 IL 113812, ¶ 17.

¶ 11 Public interest factors include the administrative difficulties caused when litigation is 

handled in congested venues, the unfairness of imposing jury duty upon residents of a 

community with no connection to the litigation, and the interest in having local controversies 

decided locally. First American Bank v. Guerine, 198 Ill. 2d 511, 516-17 (2002). Private 

interest factors include the convenience of the parties; the relative ease of access to sources of 

testimonial, documentary, and real evidence; the availability of compulsory process to secure 

attendance of unwilling witnesses; the cost to obtain attendance of willing witnesses; the 

possibility of viewing the premises and, if appropriate, all other practical considerations that 

make a trial easy, expeditious, and inexpensive. Id. at 516.

¶ 12 A court is to neither weigh the private interest factors against the public interest factors nor 

emphasize any one factor. Langenhorst v. Norfolk Southern Ry. Co., 219 Ill. 2d 430, 444 

(2006). Rather, the court must consider all relevant factors and evaluate the totality of the 

circumstances in determining whether the balance of factors strongly favors transfer. Id. at 

443. 

¶ 13 A trial court’s decision to grant or deny a motion to dismiss on forum non conveniens

grounds is reviewed for an abuse of discretion. Id. at 453-54. As we have previously observed, 

orders denying motions to dismiss based upon the doctrine of forum non conveniens have 

generally only been reversed when “the connection between the litigation and the plaintiff’s 

chosen forum is ‘so slight as to be virtually nonexistent’ [citation], or when a reviewing court 

determines that there has been an abuse of discretion by the trial court [citation].” Snook v. 

Lake Forest Hospital, 133 Ill. App. 3d 998, 1000-01 (1985). Each forum non conveniens case 

must be decided on its own considerations of convenience and fairness. Schuster v. Richards, 

2018 IL App (1st) 171558, ¶ 49.

¶ 14 Before weighing the private and public interest factors that are relevant to a 

forum non conveniens analysis, the court must determine how much weight to attach to the 

plaintiff’s choice of Cook County as the forum. Under a typical forum non conveniens analysis, 

a plaintiff’s right to select the forum is substantial and should rarely be disturbed. Fennell, 

2012 IL 113812, ¶ 18. However, the plaintiff’s choice of forum is not entitled to the same 

weight or deference in all cases. Dawdy v. Union Pacific R.R. Co., 207 Ill. 2d 167, 173 (2003). 

When a plaintiff chooses the site of the accident or injury or its home forum, it is reasonable 
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to assume that the choice of forum is convenient. Id. However, when the plaintiff is foreign to 

the chosen forum and when the action giving rise to the litigation did not occur there, the 

plaintiff’s choice of forum is accorded less deference. Id. at 173-74.

¶ 15 In this case, Cook County is not plaintiff’s home forum. In addition, Hansen never worked 

in Illinois or in Cook County when he was employed by Illinois Central. All of Hansen’s work 

for Illinois Central was in Black Hawk County, Iowa. Because plaintiff’s claims are all based 

upon injury Hansen allegedly sustained while working for Illinois Central, Black Hawk 

County, Iowa, must be the site of the injury. As Cook County is neither the site of the injury 

nor the plaintiff’s home forum, plaintiff’s choice of forum is entitled to less deference than it 

otherwise would enjoy.

¶ 16 Moving to the merits of the forum non conveniens issue, the record makes clear that the 

singular connection that this case has to Illinois or to Cook County is that Illinois Central has 

significant business operations here. Hansen did not allege that he ever even visited Illinois or 

Cook County in connection with his employment. Hansen similarly did not allege that his 

medical treatment or any other aspect of his injury led him to Illinois. Nonetheless, it is clear 

that jurisdiction is proper here and that Cook County is a potential forum. The question on 

appeal is only whether a consideration of the public and private interest factors establishes that 

the interests of this case being tried in Black Hawk County, Iowa, greatly outweigh the interests 

of the case being tried in plaintiff’s chosen forum of Cook County.

¶ 17 While the factual connection between the parties and the chosen forum or between the 

injury and the chosen forum is not determinative, it is important. The proper focus of an 

interstate forum non conveniens analysis is “whether the case is being litigated in the most 

appropriate state.” Fennell, 2012 IL 113812, ¶ 13. “[C]auses which are without significant 

factual connections to particular forums [should] be dismissed in favor of, or transferred to, 

convenient forums.” Id. ¶ 44. 

¶ 18 Plaintiff’s principal contention on appeal is that because Illinois Central is headquartered 

in Cook County, there is no basis to dismiss the case on grounds of forum non conveniens. 

Plaintiff posits that certain decisions Illinois Central might have made that affected Hansen’s 

employment or led to his injury would have been made in Cook County, so this case has a 

connection to her chosen forum. 

¶ 19 Plaintiff did not argue in the trial court that Cook County was Illinois Central’s 

“headquarters.” Similarly, plaintiff did not argue that certain decisions that Illinois Central 

made in Cook County might have led to Hansen’s injuries. Plaintiff does not point to any 

evidence or even a well-pled allegation to support her theory. The trial court did not consider 

or rely on the fact that Cook County is Illinois Central’s headquarters. The trial court similarly 

did not consider whether any relevant decision making occurred in Cook County. These 

theories of connectedness to Cook County were crafted and asserted for the first time in 

response to this appeal. 

¶ 20 Although plaintiff points out that this case is at an early stage and she has not yet taken 

discovery on some matters that might connect the case to Illinois, there is no record of plaintiff 

seeking leave to take such discovery in the trial court. The Illinois Supreme Court Rules allow 

a party to seek discovery to defeat a forum non conveniens motion. Ill. S. Ct. R. 187(b) (eff. 

Jan. 1, 2018). Plaintiff’s contention that decision-making in Cook County might have led to 

Hansen’s injuries is pure speculation raised for the first time on appeal. Plaintiff could have 

sought leave to take discovery in an effort to, in some way, support that contention, but she did 
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not. We will not consider that speculative point in reaching a conclusion. See Lazenby v. 

Mark’s Construction, Inc., 236 Ill. 2d 83, 92 (2010) (contentions raised for the first time on 

appeal are forfeited).

¶ 21 We turn now to the public interest factors that are to be considered in a 

forum non conveniens analysis. Again, those factors are the administrative difficulties caused 

when litigation is handled in congested venues, the unfairness of imposing jury duty upon 

residents of a community with no connection to the litigation, and the interest in having local 

controversies decided locally. Guerine, 198 Ill. 2d at 516-17.

¶ 22 The parties did not develop much of a record on the issue of congestion in either venue, 

and we presume that either forum could adequately handle the case in a timely manner. 

However, the other relevant public interest considerations strongly favor the case being tried 

in Iowa. 

¶ 23 In this case, there are no legitimate connections between Cook County and the subject 

matter of the case. It is a workplace injury case, and the workplace is in Black Hawk County, 

Iowa. The injured party was always an Iowa resident that was injured solely in Iowa. All of 

the allegedly tortious conduct took place in Iowa. This is an Iowa controversy that should be 

decided in Iowa. See Fennell, 2012 IL 113812, ¶ 13 (the proper question in an interstate 

forum non conveniens analysis is “whether the case is being litigated in the most appropriate 

state”). 

¶ 24 Residents of Cook County have no real connection to Hansen himself or to his injuries. We 

do not see any justification for a Cook County court to be involved in this dispute. As our 

supreme court has recognized, “ ‘[t]he county in which the trial is held is financially burdened 

by the payment of jurors’ fees and by providing court personnel and court facilities. The court 

system of this State is also burdened by the necessity to provide judicial personnel and the

machinery for appellate review.’ ” Id. ¶ 45 (quoting Wieser v. Missouri Pacific R.R. Co., 98 

Ill. 2d 359, 371 (1983)). Residents of Cook County, or Illinois for that matter, have no interest 

in resolving an Iowa workplace injury case. It would be unfair to impose jury duty and the 

allocation of other resources for this case on Cook County, which has no legitimate connection 

to the litigation. See Dawdy, 207 Ill. 2d at 183 (“the residents of [the chosen forum] should not 

be burdened with jury duty given the fact that the action did not arise in, and has no relation 

to, their county”); see also Schuster, 2018 IL App (1st) 171558, ¶ 40.

¶ 25 As we alluded to before, there is no evidence in the record that Illinois Central’s presence 

in Illinois has any causal connection with Hansen’s injuries. On appeal, plaintiff has tried to 

make out that connection through conjecture by claiming that there were perhaps decisions 

made in Cook County that affected Hansen’s employment. Plaintiff’s unsupported argument, 

raised for the first time on appeal, is insufficient to counter the significant weight of the factors 

favoring the alternate forum.

¶ 26 As far as the public interest factors are concerned, this case strongly resembles Fennell, the 

case in which our supreme court held that a motion to dismiss should have been granted on the 

grounds of forum non conveniens. Both in Fennell and in this case, employees of a railroad 

company asserted personal injury claims for exposure to toxic products while being employed 

by the railroad. Fennell, 2012 IL 113812, ¶ 3. The plaintiffs did not live in Illinois, and the 

plaintiffs never worked in Illinois. Id. ¶ 6. When analyzing the public interest factors, the court 

explained that the lack of any significant factual connection between the subject matter of the 

case and the chosen forum did not “justify imposition of the burdens of the litigation upon the 
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citizens and court system of St. Clair County and Illinois.” Id. ¶ 46. Furthermore, like it 

observed in Fennell, our supreme court “has consistently held that a case should not be tried 

in a forum that has no significant factual connections to the cause of action.” (Internal quotation 

marks omitted.) Id. The residents of Iowa are the only residents that have a significant 

connection to this controversy. 

¶ 27 Similarly, in Dawdy, 207 Ill. 2d 167, our supreme court’s analysis of the public interest 

factors highlighted the fact that the controversy had no legitimate connection to the chosen 

forum. Id. at 183. The court observed that the chosen forum had “little or no interest in trying 

the action of a nonresident whose claim arose in [a foreign venue].” Id. The court noted that 

the county in which the injury occurred had a strong interest in the action, and that the location 

of the injury gave the case a local interest for that county. Id. The same holds true here.

¶ 28 Turning to the private interest factors that are relevant in a forum non conveniens analysis, 

those factors are the convenience of the parties; the relative ease of access to sources of 

testimonial, documentary, and real evidence; the availability of compulsory process to secure 

attendance of unwilling witnesses; the cost to obtain attendance of willing witnesses; the 

possibility of viewing the premises, and, if appropriate, all other practical considerations that 

make a trial easy, expeditious, and inexpensive. Guerine, 198 Ill. 2d at 516.

¶ 29 Hansen and plaintiff, his personal representative, are Iowa residents. Hansen has not 

identified any witnesses that live in Illinois. All of Hansen’s medical providers and coworker 

occurrence witnesses are located outside of Illinois and not subject to compulsory process here. 

As plaintiff points out, not all of the identified witnesses reside in Black Hawk County, Iowa, 

but the overwhelming majority of them do. And none of them reside in Cook County or in 

Illinois. The cost of obtaining those witnesses’ testimony is far less in Black Hawk County 

than it would be in Cook County. As to the potential witnesses that are traveling from outside 

of either Iowa or Illinois, they would have to undertake significant travel either way. Looking 

at the potential witness list as a whole, however, the cost and time burden is significantly less 

in Black Hawk County, Iowa, than it is in Cook County, where every witness would have to 

travel extensively.

¶ 30 While we cannot know whether a visit to the site of Hansen’s injury would be relevant at 

trial, that factor also favors the case being held in the county where the injury occurred, rather 

than in a foreign state. Our supreme court has explained that we should consider that factor, 

along with all the other factors, where there is a possibility that the injury site might be helpful 

to the resolution of the case. See Dawdy, 207 Ill. 2d at 178-79. Plaintiff’s theory of liability is 

that Illinois Central created an unsafe workplace by allowing its employees to be exposed to 

harmful substances. Plaintiff has alleged, for example, that Illinois Central failed to adequately 

test or inspect the workplace to make sure that dangerous levels of these toxins were not 

present. It is not farfetched to presume that a view of the workplace could be relevant. 

Plaintiff’s workplace is at the center of the dispute, and litigating the case in the same forum 

as the site of the injury is far more reasonable than litigating it in a faraway county with no 

legitimate connection to the case. See id. at 184. 

¶ 31 Even though we conclude that the weight of the public and private interest factors strongly 

favors this case being held in Black Hawk County, Iowa, we wish to address plaintiff’s 

principal argument—that the forum is convenient because Illinois Central is headquartered in 

Cook County. In addressing the contention, it is important that we point out that plaintiff did 

not raise Illinois Central’s status in Cook County as its “headquarters” in the trial court. 
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Plaintiff simply argued that Illinois Central does significant business in Cook County, so the 

court should not find that the forum is inconvenient. Nonetheless, we have previously observed 

that when a defendant has its headquarters in the plaintiff’s chosen forum, a transfer is 

generally not warranted because, under usual circumstances, a party cannot convincingly claim 

that his home forum is inconvenient. Johnson v. Nash, 2019 IL App (1st) 180840, ¶ 44. 

¶ 32 The Illinois Supreme Court has, however, made clear that, while the location of a 

defendant’s headquarters is a factor to consider in a forum non conveniens analysis, it is not by 

any means a dispositive factor. Gridley, 217 Ill. 2d at 172-73; see also Skidmore v. Gateway 

Western Ry. Co., 366 Ill. App. 3d 238, 241-42 (2006). In this case, Illinois Central’s corporate 

presence in Cook County is the only factor tying this case to the county or to the entire state. 

Aside from Illinois Central’s corporate presence in Cook County, every consideration in this 

case strongly favors the case being held in an Iowa tribunal. 

¶ 33 After conducting a thorough weighing of the public and private interest factors and giving 

due, but reduced, deference to Plaintiffs’ choice of forum, it is clear that the relevant 

considerations strongly favor dismissal of this case on grounds of forum non conveniens. The 

lack of any connection that the parties and the subject matter of the case have to Cook County, 

along with the strong weight of both the public and private interest factors, demonstrates that 

a dismissal of this case in favor of Black Hawk County, Iowa, better serves the considerations 

of fundamental fairness, sensible and effective judicial administration, and the ends of justice.

¶ 34 III. CONCLUSION

¶ 35 For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the circuit court’s denial of Illinois Central’s motion 

to dismiss on grounds of forum non conveniens. The case is remanded with directions that it 

be dismissed pursuant to Illinois Supreme Court Rule 187(c)(2) (eff. Jan. 1, 2018).

¶ 36 Reversed and remanded with directions.