Opinion ID: 75793
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Sibaja Decision

Text: 24 We need not address this question sui generis, however, because our precedent of Sibaja v. Dow Chemical Co. is directly on point. In that case, the plaintiffs were Costa Rican agricultural workers who had brought a personal injury suit in Florida state court after allegedly being exposed, while in Costa Rica, to pesticides that the defendants manufactured. The defendants removed the case to federal court, arguing that federal forum non conveniens law should apply in diversity cases and that the plaintiffs' suit thus should be dismissed. 13 We agreed with the defendants and concluded that federal forum non conveniens law was applicable to the diversity suit. 25 In reaching this conclusion, we called attention to the fact that the application of the federal, rather than the state, forum non conveniens rule alters the outcome of this case. Sibaja, 757 F.2d at 1219. Even though the application of state law would be outcome-determinative, we decided that countervailing federal interests trumped this concern. Specifically, we linked the federal forum non conveniens doctrine to the court's inherent power, under article III of the Constitution, to control the administration of the litigation before it and to prevent its process from becoming an instrument of abuse, injustice and oppression. Id. at 1218; see also Hanna, 380 U.S. at 472-73, 85 S.Ct. at 1145 (noting that matters which relate to the administration of legal proceedings [are matters over] which federal courts have traditionally exercised strong inherent power, completely aside from the powers Congress expressly conferred in the [Federal Rules of Procedure]) We opined that the federal doctrine is but one manifestation of a court's inherent power to protect the integrity of its process, and we also connected the doctrine to a [c]ourt's interest in controlling its crowded docket. Sibaja, 757 F.2d at 1218. Essentially, our court in Sibaja indicated that the federal judiciary has a unique supervisory interest in the management and administration of a uniform, national system of Article III courts, and we held that this interest trumps state law. Put differently, the case made clear that the federal judiciary traditionally has exercised a certain level of discretionary power to oversee access to its courts, and that this interest in federal oversight tilts the balance against applying state law. 26 The Sibaja opinion, in fact, did more than point out the federal countervailing interests that override the need for applying state law. Our court also made a foray into the murky waters of the substance/procedure dichotomy. Because the federal forum non conveniens doctrine concerns control over which parties are entitled to have federal courthouse access in the first instance, we stated that the doctrine involves a decision that occur[s] before, and completely apart from, any application of state substantive law. Id. at 1219. We explained that the federal doctrine is a matter of procedure (a rule of venue, not a rule of decision), and that it does not involve a decision going to the character and result of the controversy. Id. For these reasons, we decided that it was appropriate for the district court to apply federal forum non conveniens law and to dismiss the diversity suit of the Costa Rican plaintiffs. 27 In light of Sibaja, the district court in the present litigation erred by applying Florida law rather than federal law on forum non conveniens. We discern no principled distinction between Sibaja and the situation here. The initial order issued in the Bestors' federal lawsuit — in which Chief Judge Davis employed the federal forum non conveniens doctrine and concluded that the case should not be dismissed — was the proper mode of analysis that should have been followed by the district court once the Appellants' cases were transferred and consolidated. Instead, the district court chose to sua sponte raise the Erie issue and to apply Florida forum non conveniens law, a decision inconsistent with the teachings of Sibaja.