Case Name: GULF OIL CORP. v. GILBERT, doing business as GILBERT STORAGE & TRANSFER CO.
Court: Supreme Court of the United States
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1947-03-10
Citations: 330 U.S. 501
Docket Number: No. 93
Parties: GULF OIL CORP. v. GILBERT, doing business as GILBERT STORAGE & TRANSFER CO.
Judges: Mr. Justice Reed and Mr. Justice Burton dissent. They do not set out the factual reasons for their dissent since the Court’s affirmance of Roster v. Lumbermens Mutual Casualty Co., decided today, post, p. 518, would control.
Reporter: United States Reports
Volume: 330
Pages: 501–517

Head Matter:
GULF OIL CORP. v. GILBERT, doing business as GILBERT STORAGE & TRANSFER CO.
No. 93.
Argued December 18, 19, 1946.
Decided March 10, 1947.
Archie D. Gray and Bernard A. Golding argued the cause for petitioner. With them on the brief were John E. Green, Jr. and Matthew S. Gibson.
Max J. Gwertzman argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.

Opinion:
Mr. Justice Jackson
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The questions are whether the United States District Court has inherent power to dismiss a suit pursuant to the doctrine of jorum non conveniens and, if so, whether that power was abused in this case.
The respondent-plaintiff brought this action in the Southern District of New York, but resides at Lynchburg, Virginia, where he operated a public warehouse. He alleges that the petitioner-defendant, in violation of the ordinances of Lynchburg, so carelessly handled a delivery of gasoline to his warehouse tanks and pumps as to cause an explosion and fire which consumed the warehouse building to his damage of 141,889.10, destroyed merchandise and fixtures to his damage of $3,602.40, caused injury to his business and profits of $20,038.27, and burned the property of customers in his custody under warehousing agreements to the extent of $300,000. He asks judgment of $365,529.77 with costs and disbursements, and interest from the date of the fire. The action clearly is one in tort.
The petitioner-defendant is a corporation organized under the laws of Pennsylvania, qualified to do business in both Virginia and New York, and it has designated officials of each state as agents to receive service of process. When sued in New York, the defendant, invoking the doctrine of jorum non conveniens, claimed that the appropriate place for trial is Virginia, where the plaintiff lives and defendant does business, where all events in litigation took place, where most of the witnesses reside, and where both state and federal courts are available to plaintiff and are able to obtain jurisdiction of the defendant.
The case, on its merits, involves no federal question and was brought in the United States District Court solely because of diversity in citizenship of the parties. Because of the character of its jurisdiction and the holdings of and under Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64, the District Court considered that the law of New York as to jorum non conveniens applied and that it required the case to be left to Virginia courts. It therefore dismissed.
The Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed as to the applicability of New York law, took a restrictive view of the application of the entire doctrine in federal courts and, one judge dissenting, reversed. The case is here on certiorari. 328 U. S. 830.
I.
It is conceded that the venue statutes of the United States permitted the plaintiff to commence his action in the Southern District of New York and empower that court to entertain it. But that does not settle the question whether it must do so. Indeed, the doctrine of jorum non conveniens can never apply if there is absence of jurisdiction or mistake of venue.
This Court, in one form of words or another, has repeatedly recognized the existence of the power to decline jurisdiction in exceptional circumstances. As formulated by Mr. Justice Brandéis, the rule is:
"Obviously, the proposition that a court having jurisdiction must exercise it, is not universally true; else the admiralty court could never decline jurisdiction on the ground that the litigation is between foreigners. Nor is it true of courts administering other systems of our law. Courts of equity and of law also occasionally decline, in the interest of justice, to exercise jurisdiction, where the suit is between aliens or non-residents or where for kindred reasons the litigation can more appropriately be conducted in a foreign tribunal." Canada Malting Co., Ltd., v. Paterson Steamships, Ltd., 285 U. S. 413, 422-23.
We later expressly said that a state court "may in appropriate cases apply the doctrine of forum non conveniens." Broderick v. Rosner, 294 U. S. 629, 643; Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U. S. 287, 294, n. 5. Even where federal rights binding on state courts under the Constitution are sought to be adjudged, this Court has sustained state courts in a refusal to entertain a litigation between a nonresident and a foreign corporation or between two foreign corporations. Douglas v. New York, N. H. & H. R. R., 279 U. S. 377; Anglo-American Provision Co. v. Davis Provision Co. No. 1, 191 U. S. 373. It has held the use of an inappropriate forum in one case an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce. Davis v. Farmers Co-operative Equity Co., 262 U. S. 312. On substantially jorum non conveniens grounds we have required federal courts to relinquish decision of cases within their jurisdiction where the court would have to participate in the administrative policy of a state. Railroad Commission v. Rowan & Nichols Oil Co., 311 U. S. 570; Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U. S. 315; but cf. Meredith v. Winter Haven, 320 U. S. 228. And most recently we decided Williams v. Green Bay & Western R. R. Co., 326 U. S. 549, in which the Court, without questioning the validity of the doctrine, held it had been applied in that case without justification.
It is true that in cases under the Federal Employers' Liability Act we have held that plaintiff's choice of a forum cannot be defeated on the basis of jorum non conveniens. But this was because the special venue act under which those cases are brought was believed to require it. Baltimore & Ohio R. R. v. Kepner, 314 U. S. 44; Miles v. Illinois Central R. R., 315 U. S. 698. Those decisions do not purport to modify the doctrine as to other cases governed by the general venue statutes.
But the court below says that "The Kepner case . . . warned against refusal of jurisdiction in a particular case controlled by congressional act; here the only difference is that congressional act, plus judicial interpretation (under the Neirbo case), spells out the result." 153 F. 2d at 885. The Federal Employers' Liability Act, however, which controlled decision in the Kepner case, specifically provides where venue may be had in any suit on a cause of action arising under that statute. What the court below refers to as "congressional act, plus judicial interpretation," is the general statute of venue in diversity suits, plus our decision that it gives the defendant "a personal privilege respecting the venue, or place of suit, which he may assert, or may waive, at his election," Neirbo Co. v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., 308 U. S. 165, 168. The Federal Employers' Liability Act, as interpreted by Kepner, increases the number of places where the defendant may be sued and makes him accept the plaintiff's choice. The Neirbo case is only a declaration that if the defendant, by filing consent to be sued, waives its privilege to be sued at its place of residence, it may be sued in the federal courts at the place where it has consented to be sued. But the general venue statute plus the Neirbo interpretation do not add up to a declaration that the court must respect the choice of the plaintiff, no matter what the type of suit or issues involved. The two taken together mean only that the defendant may consent to be sued, and it is proper for the federal court to take jurisdiction, not that the plaintiff's choice cannot be questioned. The defendant's consent to be sued extends only to give the court jurisdiction of the person; it assumes that the court, having the parties before it, will apply all the applicable law, including, in those cases where it is appropriate, its discretionary judgment as to whether the suit should be entertained. In all cases in which the doctrine of jorum non conveniens comes into play, it presupposes at' least two forums in which the defendant is amenable to process; the doctrine furnishes criteria for choice between them.
II.
The principle of forum non conveniens is simply that a court may resist imposition upon its jurisdiction even when jurisdiction is authorized by the letter of a general venue statute. These statutes are drawn with a necessary generality and usually give a plaintiff a choice of courts, so that he may be quite sure of some place in which to pursue his remedy. But the open door may admit those who seek not simply justice but perhaps justice blended with some harassment. A plaintiff sometimes is under temptation to resort to a strategy of forcing the trial at a most inconvenient place for an adversary, even at some inconvenience to himself.
Many of the states have met misuse of venue by investing courts with a discretion to change the place of trial on various grounds, such as the convenience of witnesses and the ends of justice. The federal law contains no such express criteria to guide the district court in exercising its power. But the problem is a very old one affecting the administration of the courts as well as the rights of litigants, and both in England and in this country the common law worked out techniques and criteria for dealing with it.
Wisely, it has not been attempted to catalogue the circumstances which will justify or require either grant or denial of remedy. The doctrine leaves much to the discretion of the court to which plaintiff resorts, and experience has not shown a judicial tendency to renounce one's own jurisdiction so strong as to result in many abuses.
If the combination and weight of factors requisite to given results are difficult to forecast or state, those to be considered are not difficult to name. An interest to be considered, and the one likely to be most pressed, is the private interest of the litigant. Important considerations are the relative ease of access to sources of proof; availability of compulsory process for attendance of unwilling, and the cost of obtaining attendance of willing, witnesses; possibility of view of premises, if view would be appropriate to the action; and all other practical problems that make trial of a case easy, expeditious and inexpensive. There may also be questions as to the enforcibility of a judgment if one is obtained. The court will weigh relative advantages and obstacles to fair trial. It is often said that the plaintiff may not, by choice of an inconvenient forum, "vex," "harass," or "oppress" the defendant by inflicting upon him expense or trouble not necessary to his own right to pursue his remedy. But unless the balance is strongly in favor of the defendant, the plaintiff's choice of forum should rarely be disturbed.
Factors of public interest also have place in applying the doctrine. Administrative difficulties follow for courts when litigation is piled up in congested centers instead of being handled at its origin. Jury duty is a burden that ought not to be imposed upon the people of a community which has no relation to the litigation. In cases which touch the affairs of many persons, there is reason for holding the trial in their view and reach rather than in remote parts of the country where they can learn of it by report only. There is a local interest in having localized controversies decided at home. There is an appropriateness, too, in having the trial of a diversity case in a forum that is at home with the state law that must govern the case, rather than having a court in some other forum untangle problems in conflict of laws, and in law foreign to itself.
The law of New York as to the discretion of a court to apply the doctrine of forum non conveniens, and as to the standards that guide discretion is, so far as here involved, the same as the federal rule. Murnan v. Wabash R. Co., 246 N. Y. 244, 158 N. E. 508; Wedemann v. United States Trust Co., 258 N. Y. 315, 179 N. E. 712; see Gregonis v. Philadelphia and Reading Co., 235 N. Y. 152, 139 N. E. 223. It would not be profitable, therefore, to pursue inquiry as to the source from which our rule must flow.
III.
Turning to the question whether this is one of those rather rare cases where the doctrine should be applied, we look first to the interests of the litigants.
The plaintiff himself is not a resident of New York, nor did any event connected with the case take place there, nor does any witness, with the possible exception of experts, live there. No one connected with that side of the case save counsel for the plaintiff resides there, and he has candidly told us that he was retained by insurance companies interested presumably because of subrogation. His affidavits and argument are devoted to controverting claims as to defendant's inconvenience rather than to showing that the present forum serves any convenience of his own, with one exception. The only justification for trial in New York advanced here is one rejected by the district court and is set forth in the brief as follows:
"This Court can readily realize that an action of this type, involving as it does a claim for damages in an amount close to $400,000, is one which may stagger the imagination of a local jury which is surely unaccustomed to dealing with amounts of such a nature. Furthermore, removed from Lynchburg, the respondent will have an opportunity to try this case free from local influences and preconceived notions which may make it difficult to procure a jury which has no previous knowledge of any of the facts herein."
This unproven premise that jurors of New York live on terms of intimacy with $400,000 transactions is not an assumption we easily make. Nor can we assume that a jury from Lynchburg and vicinity would be "staggered" by contemplating the value of a warehouse building that stood in their region, or of merchandise and fixtures such as were used there, nor are they likely to be staggered by the value of chattels which the people of that neighborhood put in storage. It is a strange argument on behalf of a Virginia plaintiff that the community which gave him patronage to make his business valuable is not capable of furnishing jurors who know the value of the goods they store, the building they are stored in, or the business their patronage creates. And there is no specification of any local influence, other than accurate knowledge of local conditions, that would make a fair trial improbable. The net of this is that we cannot say the District Court was bound to entertain a provincial fear of the provincialism of a Virginia jury. That leaves the Virginia plaintiff without even a suggested reason for transporting this suit to New York.
Defendant points out that not only the plaintiff, but every person who participated in the acts charged to be negligent, resides in or near Lynchburg. It also claims a need to interplead an alleged independent contractor which made the delivery of the gasoline and which is a Virginia corporation domiciled in Lynchburg, that it cannot interplead in New York. There also are approximately 350 persons residing in and around Lynchburg who stored with plaintiff the goods for the damage to which he seeks to recover. The extent to which they have left the community since the fire and the number of them who will actually be needed is in dispute. The complaint alleges that defendant's conduct violated Lynchburg ordinances. Conditions are said to require proof by firemen and by many others. The learned and experienced trial judge was not unaware that litigants generally manage to try their cases with fewer witnesses than they predict in such motions as this. But he was justified in concluding that this trial is likely to be long and to involve calling many witnesses, and that Lynchburg, some 400 miles from New York, is the source of all proofs for either side, with possible exception of experts. Certainly to fix the place of trial at a point where litigants cannot compel personal attendance and may be forced to try their cases on deposition, is to create a condition not satisfactory to court, jury or most litigants. Nor is it necessarily cured by the statement of plaintiff's counsel that he will see to getting many of the witnesses to the trial and that some of them "would be delighted to come to New York to testify." There may be circumstances where such a proposal should be given weight. In others, the offer may not turn out to be as generous as defendant or court might suppose it to be. Such matters are for the District Court to decide in exercise of a sound discretion.
The court likewise could well have concluded that the task of the trial court would be simplified by trial in Vir ginia. If trial was in a state court, it could apply its own law to events occurring there. If in federal court by reason of diversity of citizenship, the court would apply the law of its own state in which it is likely to be experienced. The course of adjudication in New York federal court might be beset with conflict of laws problems all avoided if the case is litigated in Virginia where it arose.
We are convinced that the District Court did not exceed its powers or the bounds of its discretion in dismissing plaintiff's complaint and remitting him to the courts of his own community. The Circuit Court of Appeals took too restrictive a view of the doctrine as approved by this Court. Its judgment is
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Reed and Mr. Justice Burton dissent. They do not set out the factual reasons for their dissent since the Court's affirmance of Roster v. Lumbermens Mutual Casualty Co., decided today, post, p. 518, would control.
Gilbert v. Gulf Oil Corp., 62 F. Supp. 291.
Gilbert v. Gulf Oil Corp., 153 F. 2d 883.
See 28 U. S. C. § 112; Neirbo Co. v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., Ltd., 308 U. S. 165.
The doctrine did not originate in federal but in state courts. This Court in recognizing and approving it by name has never indicated that it was rejecting application of the doctrine to law actions which had been an integral and necessary part of evolution of the doctrine. And cf. Slater v. Mexican National R. R., 194 U. S. 120. Wherever it is applied in courts of other jurisdictions, its application does not depend on whether the action is at law, Collard v. Beach, 93 App. Div. 339, 87 N. Y. S. 884; Murnan v. Wabash R. Co., 246 N. Y. 244, 158 N. E. 508; Jackson & Sons v. Lumbermen's Mutual Casualty Co., 86 N. H. 341, 168 A. 895; or in equity, Langfelder v. Universal Laboratories, 293 N. Y. 200, 56 N. E. 2d 550; Egbert v. Short, [1907] 2 Ch. 205. See footnote 1, Roster v. (American) Lumbermens Mutual Casualty Co., decided this day, post, p. 518.
See Foster, Place of Trial—Interstate Application of Intrastate Methods of Adjustment, 44 Harv. L. Rev. 41, 47, 62.
See Logan v. Bank of Scotland, [1906] 1 K. B. 141; cf. La Société du Gaz de Paris v. La Société Anonyme de Navigation "Les Armateurs Français," [1926] Sess. Cas. (H. L.) 13. Collard v. Beach, 93 App. Div. 339, 87 N. Y. S. 884; Jackson & Sons v. Lumbermen's Mutual Casualty Co., 86 N. H. 341, 168 A. 895; see Pietraroia v. New Jersey & Hudson R. R. Co., 197 N. Y. 434, 91 N. E. 120; Great Western Railway Co. v. Miller, 19 Mich. 305.
See Dainow, The Inappropriate Forum, 29 111. L. Rev. 867, 889.
See Blair, The Doctrine of Forum Non Conveniens in Anglo-American Law, 29 Col. L. Rev. 1.