Court Opinion

ID: 9681162
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:44:40.358076+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:24.680834
License: Public Domain

BLACKMAR, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
The principal opinion properly reflects the state of the Missouri law respecting the doctrine of forum non conveniens, in a series of cases in which there was no occasion to discuss the present problem. I would not draw the distinction that the Court now draws. The doctrine connotes a case brought in a venue authorized by statute, and allows the trial court to determine whether the place of trial is manifestly inconvenient. Never before have our venue statutes been construed as conferring upon a plaintiff the privilege of maintaining a suit in an inconvenient forum.
Residents of Johnson County, Kansas may suffer no great difficulty or inconvenience if they are called upon to attend a trial in Kansas City, Missouri. By contrast, it may be very inconvenient to hold a trial in the City of St. Louis when all other incidents of the case relate to Springfield and adjoining counties. See Sperry Corporation v. Corcoran, 657 S.W.2d 619, 621 (Mo. banc 1983), Blackmar, J., dissenting, in which there was an attempt to maintain such a case in the City of St. Louis when venue was supported only by the presence of the registered office of a corporate defendant there.
In that case the issue of forum non conveniens was not presented because the majority found that the cause of action stated against the corporate defendant was not the same as that stated against the other defendants, and so the venue in St. Louis was improper. But the case was overruled in State ex rel. Bitting v. Adolf, 704 S.W.2d 671 (Mo. banc 1986), which opted in favor of the free joinder of related claims, including claims for contribution and indemnity, in the same action. This holding promotes efficiency in litigation but opens the possibility that a case will be brought in a highly inconvenient location simply because the plaintiff can find a defendant with an actual or artificial domicile in the forum county. It demonstrates another reason why the courts should not be wholly deprived of the power to reject cases under the doctrine of forum non con-veniens even though statutory venue is present. It should make no difference *588whether the plaintiffs are residents or nonresidents.
I am not persuaded that the venue in the present case is manifestly inconvenient. St. Joseph is approximately an hour away from Kansas City. But the relator, probably trying to test the issue, does not dispute the claim of inconvenience, and litigates only the question of power. I would not upset the circuit court’s considered holding.
The principal opinion effects a narrowing of the power of the trial courts to deal with problems presented in litigation, in a way not previously directed by the ease law, and contrary to the only Missouri case on the point, Blankenship v. Saitz, 682 S.W.2d 116 (Mo.App.1984) (another artificial domicile case with venue based on the location of a corporation’s registered office). I believe that this result is not a desirable one and would opt in favor of allowing the trial courts discretion.
I would affirm the judgment of dismissal.