Court Opinion

ID: 9524482
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:53:11.296855+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:10:36.315046
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE GOLDENHERSH, dissenting: I dissent and would affirm the judgment of the appellate court. Missing in this case, and apparently in several of the authorities upon which the majority relies, is an element essential to the application of the doctrine of forum non conveniens. In Gulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert (1947), 330 U.S. 501, 506-07, 91 L. Ed. 1055, 1061, 67 S. Ct. 839, 842, the court said: “In all cases in which the doctrine of forum 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.” There is nothing before us to show that defendant is amenable to process in the United Kingdom. Obviously, the willingness to accept process is not the equivalent of a defendant’s being amenable to process. Defendant’s consent to accept process and submit to the jurisdiction of the courts of Great Britain is not an adequate basis for the allowance of a motion to dismiss on the ground of forum non conveniens. It in effect permits a defendant to select the forum in which it wishes to have its cause tried and then become “amenable to process” by consenting to submit to the jurisdiction of its courts. Defendant and the majority rely on Harrison v. Wyeth Laboratories Division of American Home Products Corp. (E.D. Penn. 1980), 510 F. Supp. 1. The order entered in that case upon allowance of the motion to dismiss demonstrates the inadequacy of the forum to which the plaintiffs are relegated. The order of dismissal is conditioned upon the defendant’s consenting “to suit and acceptance of process in the United Kingdom ***.” Defendant also agrees “to make available at its own expense any documents or witnesses within its control that are needed for fair adjudication of any action brought in the United Kingdom by the plaintiffs on their claims.” This order hardly presupposes the existence of a forum in which the defendant is amenable to process and demonstrates that available discovery is inadequate in litigation of this type. I would note further that there is nothing before us to show that the courts in Great Britain will necessarily assume and retain jurisdiction in a cause of action where the defendant is not amenable to, but must consent to, its jurisdiction. On this record the presupposition that there are at least two forums in which the defendant is amenable to process is wholly without support. Assuming, arguendo, that the necessary elements are present, the record fails to support the circuit court’s conclusion that the circuit court of Cook County is an inconvenient forum. This action presents issues of the adequacy of the warnings given physicians and patients, and it is apparent from the record that defendant’s decisions controlling those matters are made in Cook County and not in Great Britain. The product is manufactured and marketed in Great Britain by a wholly owned subsidiary of defendant with only limited authority to modify the instructions and warnings. Finally, it should be noted that the decisions upon which the majority relies are decisions of United States district courts, reached without the guidance of definitive decisions of the appellate courts of the States whose law they purport to apply. Unlike those jurisdictions, this court has held that the doctrine of forum non conveniens may be applicable when an appropriate forum other than the courts of this State is available and when the relief sought here is by a nonresident against a nonresident. Whitney v. Madden (1948), 400 Ill. 185. We have before us a defendant sued "in its own backyard” in the county in which it maintains its principal offices and in which most of its decisions are made. To permit the type of forum shopping shown by this record will require these plaintiffs to try their cases in a jurisdiction that denies them a jury trial and affords them admittedly inadequate discovery. For those reasons I dissent. JUSTICE SIMON joins in this dissent.