Opinion ID: 54041
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Availability of Compulsory Process for Unwilling Witnesses

Text: The second private interest factor, the availability of compulsory process for the attendance of unwilling witnesses, weighs heavily in favor of dismissal. Dtex argues that the significant witnesses are either parties or are under the control of the parties. (Docket Entry No. 50 at 27). The record does not support this argument. (Docket Entry No. 20). Dtex's own allegations make it clear that a number of nonparty Mexican citizens are likely to be important witnesses in this case. They include: the judicial administrator (who is not a Bancomer employee); the Denimtex Trustee; the Mexican court judges; Mexican police officers; the alleged accomplices of the judicial administrator who supposedly threatened Denimtex's workers; the individuals who allegedly barred Dtex's representatives from taking possession of the equipment on November 4, 2003; the Ordinary Labor Court official who accompanied Hernandez Martinez to the Denimtex plant on December 16, 2003; the Mexican police who allegedly threatened Dtex representatives or interfered with the equipment; and the Ordinary Labor Court official who authored the January 14, 2004 letter regarding the dispute at the Denimtex plant that occurred on January 14, 2004. (Docket Entry No. 51). Most of these witnesses are Mexican citizens and are not parties or employees of the parties. This court cannot compel attendance by any unwilling nonparty witness who is in Mexico. Moreover, Dtex has not identified key party or nonparty witnesses who are in Texas. [T]o 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 litigants. Perez & Compania (Cataluna), S.A. v. M/V Mexico I, 826 F.2d 1449, 1453 (5th Cir.1987). Dtex cites two cases to support its argument that a court may deny a motion to dismiss on the basis of forum non conveniens even if the evidence and witnesses are located in the foreign forum. In DiRienzo v. Philip Services Corp., 294 F.3d 21 (2d Cir.2002), the court declined to dismiss the action despite the fact that many of the witnesses were in Ontario. The court found that willing witnesses were within a relatively short distance of New York and could easily travel there. The court acknowledged that unwilling witnesses could not be compelled to appear and that the number of witnesses for whom these accommodations would have to be made and the preference for live testimony weighed in favor of dismissal, despite the availability of videotaped depositions, obtained through letters rogatory. Id. at 30. The court relied on other factors (not present in this case) to conclude that the balance did not tip in favor of dismissal. This case is distinguishable from the present case, in which the foreign witnesses are scattered in different parts of Mexico from Chihuahua to Mexico City, far from this Texas forum; many are nonparty witnesses; most would be unwilling witnesses whose presence could not be compelled; and no witnesses are in Texas. The second case Dtex cites, Wilson v. Humphreys (Cayman) Ltd., 916 F.2d 1239 (7th Cir.1990), involved a claim that the plaintiff had been assaulted in a Cayman Islands hotel. The location of witnesses in the Cayman Islands did not weigh strongly in favor of dismissal because many of the witnesses were employees of the defendant, which could obtain their cooperation in traveling to testify. In the present case, by contrast, there are a number of nonparty witnesses in Mexico. The inability to compel the attendance of numerous unwilling witnesses weighs heavily in favor of dismissal.