Court Opinion

ID: 9718414
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:22:56.182183+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:59.002736
License: Public Domain

PUGLIA, P. J.
I concur in the judgment. In my view, however, the opinion of the court does not place sufficient emphasis on the public, as distinguished from the private, impact of these plaintiffs’ choice of forum. Certainly, the balance of private interests among the litigants argues strongly for a change of forum to Wyoming. Even more compelling in the circumstances of this case, however, is the broader public interest in protecting finite judicial resources from exploitation and reserving them for litigants with a legitimate claim upon them.
A clearer more obvious case than this for vindication of the public concern with the choice of forum will seldom be found. The accident happened in Wyoming. The plaintiff-widow, her deceased husband and his other heirs have at all relevant times been residents of Wyoming. The estate has no property in California other than the cause of action in the underlying action. Neither research, design, development, testing or production of the trackster took place in California, nor were operating instructions or other writings pertaining to the product prepared in or disseminated to the deceased from California.
The individual defendant, France, had no contact, direct or indirect, with the deceased. He had no knowledge of the accident. He made no sales of tracksters to the deceased or anyone else in Wyoming and played no role in its design, research, testing, development or production. His presence in Wyoming three months after the fatal accident as an observer at a demonstration of the trackster’s maneuverability in snow conditions was coincidental and unconnected with the events described in the complaint. Plaintiffs’ contention that France is liable as a member of a conspiracy actively to conceal defects in the trackster from the deceased and others is untenable, since agents and employees of a corporation cannot conspire with the corporation while acting in their official capacities on behalf of the corporation. (Zumbrun v. University of Southern California (1972) 25 Cal.App.3d 1, 12 [101 Cal.Rptr. 499, 51 A.L.R.3d 991].)
The trial court denied France’s motion for summary judgment without prejudice to its renewal when the case is at issue and discovery completed. While that ruling is not in issue here, it cannot obscure the fact that France is at most a nominal defendant and in all likelihood no more than a mere witness. Accordingly, his residence in California adds nothing to the equation for determining the proper forum.
*444The public interest factors demanding consideration in a forum non conveniens determination have been the subject of comment by our highest courts. In Gulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert (1947) 330 U.S. 501 [91 L.Ed. 1055, 67 S.Ct. 839], the United States Supreme Court stated: “Administrative difficulties follow for courts when litigation is' piled up in congested centers instead of being handled at its origin. Jury duty is a burden that ought not to be imposed upon the people of a community which has no relation to the litigation. In cases which touch the affairs of many persons, there is reason for holding the trial in their view and reach rather than in remote parts of the countiy where they can learn of it by report only. There is a local interest in having localized controversies decided at home. There is an appropriateness, too, in having the trial of a . . . case in a forum that is at home with the state law that must govern the case, rather than having a court in some other forum untangle problems in conflict of laws, and in law foreign to itself.” (At pp. 508, 509 [91 L.Ed. at pp. 1062-1063].)
More pungently, our Supreme Court recently observed that “California’s appetite for litigation must not be so gluttonous as to compel it to engage in the trial of causes that are . . . more conveniently resolved elsewhere, . . .” (Archibald v. Cinerama Hotels (1976) 15 Cal.3d 853, 862 [126 Cal.Rptr. 811, 544 P.2d 947].) Unlike the case at bar, the Archibald case involved a bona fide California plaintiff with whose access to a California forum the court was justly concerned. There the court pointed out that the doctrine offorum non conveniens “reflects an overriding state policy of assuring California residents an adequate forum for the redress of grievances.” (P. 859.) (Italics added.) Not so obvious is the capacity of the doctrine to further that overriding state policy where, as here, California has no interest in providing a forum to any of the litigants before the court. In such a case, however, it is the rights of the class of resident litigants, present and prospective, which are protected by application of the doctrine of forum non conveniens, which thus insures that those litigants having a legitimate claim to a California forum will not be denied access thereto by interlopers who have preempted the available resources.
There is another dimension to the problem that requires brief mention. Indiscriminate availability of the California courts to causes of no concern locally is manifestly unfair to overburdened taxpayers who fund the judicial system as well as to citizens whose time is condemned for jury duty at personal financial sacrifice.
*445For the foregoing reasons the doctrine offorum non conveniens should be applied to prevent the importation of transitory causes of action into this state for trial. (See Price v. Atchison T. & S. F. Ry. Co. (1954) 42 Cal.2d 577, 583-584 [268 P.2d 457, 43 A.L.R.2d 756].)
A petition for a rehearing was denied July 14, 1976, and the petition of the real parties in interest for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied September 8, 1976.