Court Opinion

ID: 9565312
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:19:08.398241+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:32.859917
License: Public Domain

BROTHERTON, Justice,
dissenting:
One of the purposes of the venue rules was to prevent forum shopping. See, e.g., Rodriguez v. Grand Trunk Western R.R. Co., 120 Mich.App. 599, 328 N.W.2d 89 (1982). If we allowed plaintiffs to sue in any court in the State, courts giving larger verdicts would be overrun with plaintiffs. This unequal load would be unfair both to the courts and to corporate defendants. I believe the majority, by construing the venue statute to coincide with the constitutional limits for in personam jurisdiction, has given plaintiffs suing corporations carte blanche to forum shop.
The majority in this case has tied venue to the very broad jurisdictional test enunciated in World-wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286, 100 S.Ct. 559, 62 L.Ed.2d 490 (1980). The World-wide Volkswagen test is “that the defendant’s conduct and connection with the forum State are such that he should reasonably anticipate being haled into court there.” 444 U.S. at 297, 100 S.Ct. at 567. This would be a workable rule for venue if it were read in light of a particular injury, i.e., to require the defendant’s contacts with the forum county to be such that he should reasonably anticipate being called into court in a particular county in connection with a particular product or injury. Without a connection to the injury, the venue rules are almost meaningless in the context of a tort suit against a large out-of-state corporation. An electric company, such as Westinghouse, may well conduct business activities in every county in the State. A plaintiff injured by a Westinghouse transformer could conceivably, under the rule in this case, sue in any court in the State. In my opinion, this result gives plaintiffs too much freedom to shop for a favorable forum.
I would retain the rule announced in Brent v. Board of Trustees, 163 W.Va. 390, 256 S.E.2d 432 (1979), and I therefore note my dissent.
I am authorized to state that Justice NEELY joins me in this dissent.