Opinion ID: 2973704
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Ease-of-Access

Text: First, on this record, the U.S. forum offers greater ease of access to the relevant documents than the Argentine forum because to date most documents have been produced from the U.S. or Canada and are written in English. In addition, the ease-of-access factor supports a determination that a trial in the U.S. forum would not vex and oppress Agrium out of proportion to slight relative convenience for Duha, because most documents are in Agrium’s possession and the mere shipment of them to the U.S. forum in this case can hardly be vexatious or oppressive. The opinion below briefly treated documents under the “other problems” Gulf Oil factor (i.e., other problems that make trial less convenient and more expensive). See Duha, 340 F. Supp. 2d at 797. But there the district court examined only whether Agrium could compel document 6 Our statement in Stewart that “[s]uch a high standard would constitute a misreading of Piper and its progeny,” 865 F.2d at 106, does not change the degree of deference for cases involving home plaintiffs. Stewart, unlike this case, involved foreign plaintiffs. See id. at 104. It would indeed misread Piper—and Koster—to give to a foreign plaintiff the heightened deference intended for a domestic plaintiff’s choice of forum. That has not occurred in this case, as Duha is American, not Canadian, as were the Stewart plaintiffs. Id. Nos. 04-2505/2548 Duha v. Agrium, Inc., et al. Page 9 discovery from Argentine sources if the U.S. remained the forum. The district court did not specifically weigh the locations of documents and the impact of foreign languages when evaluating the ease-of-access factor. See id. Such an evaluation is required in this case as part of the ease-of-access analysis. Access to non-witness sources of proof, including documents in particular, is properly considered as part of the ease-of-access factor. See, e.g., DiRienzo, 294 F.3d at 29-30 (considering documents in ease of access analysis and examining witnesses under separate Gulf Oil factors); Empresa Lineas Maritimas Argentinas, S.A. v. Schichau-Unterweser, A.G., 955 F.2d 368, 374 (5th Cir. 1992) (examining only the access to and location of documents, not witnesses, under the “access to proof sources” heading); HD Brous & Co. v. Synthesys Secure Techs., 229 F. Supp. 2d 191, 197 (E.D.N.Y. 2002) (holding that because “the only significant item of documentary evidence appears to be the Agreement . . . the access to evidence factor does not favor Synthesys.”) (emphasis added). The district court also appeared to give insufficient consideration to the language of the relevant documents. Cases involving foreign language documents normally consider their impact and perhaps the cost of translation in the balance of convenience. See, e.g., ESI, Inc. v. Coastal Power Prod. Co., 995 F. Supp. 419, 426 (S.D.N.Y. 1998) (evaluating the language and location of documents when determining ease of access); HSBC USA, Inc. v. Prosegur Paraguay, S. A., No. 03 Civ. 3336 (LAP), 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19750, at  (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 30, 2004) (examining the cost of translation of documents as part of ease-of-access analysis). In this case, discovery on jurisdictional and forum non conveniens issues has already produced 4,000 pages of materials. The lion’s share of it, if the record is representative, is in English and has likely been produced from Canada or the United States, with far less coming from Argentina. Agrium’s attorney at oral argument insisted that many documents are in Argentina and written in Spanish, but Agrium provided no record evidence substantiating this allegation. Significantly, the district court observed that most of the relevant documents are in Agrium’s possession. Duha, 304 F. Supp. 2d at 797. Requiring Agrium to ship them to the U.S. would not substantially vex or oppress Agrium. Cf. DiRienzo, 294 F.3d at 30 (“The defendants have failed to explain how transporting the documents or copies of them would be ‘oppressive’ or ‘vexatious,’ nor does the district court offer a satisfactory explanation.”). We recognize that Agrium has agreed, as a condition of dismissal, to translate needed English-language documents into Spanish. See Duha, 340 F. Supp. 2d at 798. This of course would improve the ease of access to these documents for the Spanish-speaking Argentine court. But the need to get Agrium’s agreement to translate potentially thousands of English-language documents at considerable expense attests to the inherently superior ease of access to such documents in an English-speaking U.S. forum. The limited extent to which the district court considered ease of access to documents thus supports our conclusion that overall the relevant factors were not properly weighed under the Koster standard.