Court Opinion

ID: 9479086
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:08:13.310344+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:49.432403
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
Before GEE, WILLIAMS and HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Appellant has moved for rehearing suggesting that our application of Louisiana law erroneously assumed that the transfer from Texas to Louisiana was for lack of venue. From the record, it is plain that venue over this suit was not properly laid in the Southern District of Texas. The sole connection between the claim and that district was the circumstance that the plaintiff moved there from Louisiana after the events giving rise to this lawsuit took place. Nor can we find any basis for the exercise of personal jurisdiction over defendants in Texas. The district court in Louisiana at oral argument on defendants’ motion for summary judgment stated that Louisiana law applied; that in its view, plaintiff’s suit in the Southern District of Texas suffered from lack of venue and personal jurisdiction over defendants.
It is true that the Texas court’s order of transfer cites to 28 U.S.C. § 1404 and makes reference to the doctrine of forum non conveniens. It is equally plain that the transfer to Louisiana was correct, if for the wrong reasons. Appellant argues that the Louisiana District Court was bound by the reason stated by the Houston court, even if plainly erroneous. We are not persuaded. Under the law of the ease doctrine, it is not improper for a court to depart from a prior holding if convinced that it was clearly erroneous and will work a manifest injustice. Arizona v. Cal., 460 U.S. 605, 103 S.Ct. 1382, 1391, 75 L.Ed.2d 318 (1983). Our question is whether the Louisiana District Court was correct in applying the prescriptive period of Louisiana rather than Texas. We find no error in its conclusion that because there was neither personal jurisdiction over the defendants nor proper venue in Texas, the law of the transferee jurisdiction would be applied.
Appellant suggests that defendants waived venue by not properly raising it in the Texas court. We need not pause over this assertion nor over the Texas court’s citation to § 1404 rather than § 1406. It is not clear from the record whether defendants waived any claim of improper venue in the Texas court, but it is clear that defendants have always correctly maintained that the Texas court had no personal jurisdiction over them. In Ellis v. Great Southwestern Corp., 646 F.2d 1099, 1110 (5th Cir.1981), we held that
... following a section 1404(a) transfer from a district in which personal jurisdiction over the defendant could not be obtained, the transferee court must apply the choice of law rules of the state in which it sits ...
We adhere to this precedent in finding that the choice of Louisiana law was correct in this case, and the petition for rehearing is DENIED.