Source: http://supreme.nolo.com/us/334/573/case.html
Timestamp: 2019-07-21 09:28:59
Document Index: 359766691

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 12', '§ 1', '§ 1', '§ 12', '§ 12', '§ 12', '§ 4', '§ 5', '§ 10', '§ 12', '§ 1']

UNITED STATES V. NATIONAL CITY LINES, INC., 334 U. S. 573 - Volume 334 - 1948 - Full Text - US Supreme Court Center - USSC Cases - Nolo
US Supreme Court Center > Volume 334 > UNITED STATES V. NATIONAL CITY LINES, INC., 334 U. S. 573 (1948) > Full Text
In United States v. Scophony Corporation, 333 U. S. 795, we recently considered the meaning and effect of § 12 of the Clayton Act, [Footnote 1] providing for venue and service of process in civil antitrust proceedings against private corporations. This case brings before us another phase of the section's effect in like proceedings. The principal question,
The suit was brought by the United States against nine corporations [Footnote 2] for alleged violation of §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. 26 Stat. 209, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1, 2. The basic charge is that the appellees conspired to acquire control of local transportation companies in numerous cities located in widely different parts of the United States, [Footnote 3] and to restrain and monopolize interstate commerce in motor busses, petroleum supplies, tires and tubes sold to those companies, contrary to the Act's prohibitions. [Footnote 4]
The appellees filed various motions, including the one involved in this appeal. It sought dismissal of the complaint on the ground that the District Court for the Southern District of California was not a convenient forum for the trial. This motion was supported by a showing not only of inconvenience to the defendants of trial in the California district, but also that the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division (Chicago), would be the most convenient forum for them. The showing was by affidavits, executed by officers, attorneys and employees of the corporate defendants. [Footnote 6]
It is not disputed that the District Court has jurisdiction in the basic sense of power to hear and determine the cause, or that it has venue within the provisions of § 12. [Footnote 9] Nor can it be questioned that any of the defendants can be brought personally within that court's jurisdiction by service of process made in accordance with
It would serve no useful purpose to review in detail the reasoning or the authorities upon which the District Court ruled the doctrine applicable in such cases as this, or therefore the further groundings upon which it proceeded in holding the forum inconvenient. For the view has prevailed without qualification during the life of § 12, thirty-four years, that the choice of venues expressly given to the plaintiff is not to be qualified by any power of a court having venue under any of the section's alternatives to decline to exercise the jurisdiction conferred. None of the decisions on which the District Court relied suggested, much less decided, that such a power exists. This therefore is a case of first impression, seeking departure from long established practice. Moreover, the analogies drawn from other types of cases in which the doctrine has been applied [Footnote 11] cannot survive in the face of the section's explicit terms and the patent intent of Congress in enacting it.
To have broadened the choice of venue for the reasons which brought about that action, only to have it narrowed again by application of the vague and discretionary power [Footnote 16] comprehended by forum non conveniens would have been incongruous, to say the least. In making
This conclusion is supported as strongly by the history of the legislative proceedings relating to the enactment of § 12 as by the foregoing judicial constructions. Section 7 of the Sherman Act had limited venue, as we have noted, to districts in which the defendant "resides or is found." As originally introduced in the House, two sections of the Clayton Act, §§ 4 (then § 5) and 12 (then § 10) [Footnote 18] perpetuated those provisions. [Footnote 19] During discussion on the floor, however, various Representatives demanded broader choice of venue for plaintiffs. The demand related to both sections, and the discussion went
The basic aim of the advocates of change was to give the plaintiff the right to bring suit and have it tried in the district where the defendant had committed violations of the Act and inflicted the forbidden injuries. [Footnote 20] At first they were not much concerned with the exact formulation of the language to accomplish this, several formulas being proposed from time to time. [Footnote 21] But they were convinced that restricting the choice of venue to districts in which the defendant "resides or is found" was not adequate to assure that the suit could be brought where the cause of action arose, and therefore insisted on change in order to assure that result. [Footnote 22]
The committee sponsoring the bill had no objection to this purpose; indeed, its members expressly approved it. [Footnote 23] But, at first, they opposed any amendment because they thought the object fully achieved by the words "is found." [Footnote 24] Over this difference, the discussion went forward,
Two important policy considerations were advanced by the Government, however, which not only bear strongly upon that question, but affect the question of power, if Congress had not concluded it. The first is that permitting the application of forum non conveniens to antitrust cases inevitably would lengthen litigation already overextended in the time required for its final disposition, and thus would violate Congress' declared policy of expediting this type of litigation. [Footnote 36]
The argument has merit to support the conclusion we have reached upon the statute. Antitrust suits, even with all the expedition afforded them, are notoriously, though often perhaps unavoidably, long drawn-out. The more complex and important cases seldom require less than three to five years to conclude, [Footnote 37] except possibly where consent decrees are entered. Often the time necessary or taken is much longer. To inject into this over-lengthened procedure what would amount to an additional preliminary trial and review upon the convenience of the forum could not but add approximately another year or longer to the time essential for disposing of the cases -- indeed, for reaching the merits. [Footnote 38] Although some instances of inconvenience to defendants will arise from the absence of discretionary power, that will be unavoidably true in almost any event. And it may well be doubted
Further, even if it is taken that the appellees' activities constituting the core of the violations charged were as fully concentrated in or near the Illinois district as appellees claim, such a concentration might or might not exist in other like proceedings. And, in the latter event, the problem of selecting the appropriate forum well might become a highly uncertain and difficult one. [Footnote 40]
The appellees also strongly urge two other considerations which deserve mention. One is that a criminal prosecution against the appellees (together with seven individuals, officers of some of them), pending in the California district simultaneously with this cause and growing out of substantially the same transactions, had been transferred to the Illinois district shortly before the District Court entered its judgment of dismissal. [Footnote 41] The transfer was ordered pursuant to Rule 21(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. [Footnote 42] That action was taken after
Great emphasis is placed upon this as an impelling reason for holding forum non conveniens applicable here, and then sustaining the order of dismissal under that doctrine and the District Court's finding. But, for the reasons above stated, we think the matter has been concluded by the terms and intent of § 12. Moreover, it is at least doubtful whether the Government had a right to appeal from the order of transfer in the criminal case. [Footnote 43] In any event, the validity of that order is not before us. We therefore express no opinion upon either of those questions. But the fact that we cannot do so goes far to nullify the effect of appellee's argument of hardship arising from the transfer. For that argument comes down, in the peculiar circumstances, to one that, because the District Court on appellees' application has
Moreover, if the transfer should result in hardship to the appellees, [Footnote 45] insofar as the hardship arises from that
Finally, both appellees and the District Court have placed much emphasis upon this Court's recent decisions applying the doctrine of forum non conveniens, and in some instances extending the scope of its application. [Footnote 46] Whatever may be the scope of its previous application or of its appropriate extension, the doctrine is not a principle of universal applicability, as those decisions uniformly recognize. At least one invariable limiting principle may be stated. It is that, whenever Congress has vested courts with jurisdiction to hear and determine causes and has
We have just had occasion to review and to decide, by a divided Court, cases involving the doctrine of forum non conveniens. Gulf Oil Corporation v. Gilbert, 330 U. S. 501; Koster v. Lumbermens Mutual Casualty Co., 330 U. S. 518. We there held that, in cases where the plaintiff was in court in an ordinary civil suit only by reason of the venue statutes that apply generally, the court could exercise discretion in dismissing complaints to prevent imposition on its jurisdiction if the circumstances of the particular case showed an abuse of the option vested in
This is an equity suit for violation of §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Law, brought in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. The same defendants were indicted in the same court for the same transactions under the criminal provisions of the Sherman Law. That court transferred the criminal proceedings from the Southern District of California to the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois because it was "in the interest of justice" to order the transfer. In doing so, the court below was obedient to Rule 21(b) [Footnote 2/1] of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, formulated by this Court and having the force of law. 327 U.S. 823 et seq. With convincing particularity, the District
Of course, Congress may leave no choice to a court to entertain a suit even though it is vexatious and oppressive for the plaintiff to choose the particular district in which he pursues his claim. But such limitation upon the power of courts to administer justice ought not to be lightly drawn from language merely conferring jurisdiction. The manner in which jurisdictional provisions are appropriately to be read is illustrated by our decision in Massachusetts v. Missouri, 308 U. S. 1, where this Court recognized "considerations of convenience, efficiency and justice" even when a State invoked the Court's original jurisdiction in what was concededly a justiciable controversy. 308 U.S. at 308 U. S. 19. I do not find in the
Defendants in an antitrust suit may no doubt attempt to resort to delay tactics by motions claiming unfairness of a particular forum. Neither must we be indifferent to the potentialities of unfairness in giving the Government a wholly free hand in selecting its forum so long as technical requirements of venue are met. See, e.g., The Railway Shopmen's Strike Case (United States v. Railway Employees), 283 F. 479. All parties to a litigation tend to become partisans, and confidence in the fair administration of justice had better be rested on exacting standards in the quality of the federal judiciary. Federal judges ought to be of a calibre to be able to thwart obstructive tactics by defendants and not be denied all power to check attempted unfairness by a too zealous Government.
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