Court Opinion

ID: 9756658
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:45:40.369474+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:57:02.007662
License: Public Domain

FORD ELLIOTT, Judge:
This is an appeal from the January 31, 1994 order of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County granting appellees Kenneth and Eleanor Lehman’s petition to transfer venue to Bucks County. We reverse.
The underlying lawsuit stems from an automobile accident which occurred in February 1990. The accident, involving an automobile driven by Kenneth Lehman and an automobile driven by Anthony DiLeonardo, Jr., occurred along County Line Road, dividing Bucks and Montgomery Counties. At the time of the accident DiLeonardo’s brother Steven was a passenger in his vehicle. As a result of the collision, both Anthony and Steven DiLeonardo were ejected from their vehicle. Steven DiLeonardo was struck by an oncoming tow truck and killed.
*3Allen W. Rubin, Administrator of the Estate of Steven DiLeonardo, filed suit in Philadelphia County against the Lehmans, General Motors Corporation, the tow truck company and driver, the owner of the vehicle in tow, and nine other corporate defendants who all had an ownership interest in the property at the intersection where the accident occurred. In a companion suit currently pending in Philadelphia County, Anthony DiLeonardo likewise sued these same defendants.
In October 1993, appellees Kenneth and Eleanor Lehman petitioned to have the case transferred to the Court of Common Pleas of Bucks County on the grounds of forum non conveniens. In the petition, appellees alleged that transfer was proper for several reasons. Appellees pointed to the facts that the accident occurred in Bucks County, that four of the individual defendants reside in Bucks County, that the causes of action had very little connection to Philadelphia County, that the Philadelphia County courts are overburdened, and that for the majority of witnesses in this case it would be more convenient to testify in Bucks County. Many of the allegations in appellees’ petition were unsubstantiated; appellees failed to take depositions or secure affidavits to support their allegations concerning the convenience of witnesses. Appellant responded to the petition by specifically denying several of the allegations and offering testimonial affidavits to support his position. The trial court, on this record and without conducting a hearing, granted the petition and transferred the case to Bucks County. Appellant asks us to review that decision.
To that end, appellant raises three issues, all concerning the propriety of the trial court’s decision to transfer venue.
I. Did the trial court adequately consider plaintiffs choice of forum in granting the motion to transfer?
II. Did the trial court improperly order transfer when petitioning defendants did not demonstrate through record evidence that Philadelphia is inconvenient for any party or witness and plaintiff established that this forum is convenient for parties and witnesses?
*4III. Did the trial court improperly order transfer when the record shows Bucks County is an inconvenient forum for parties and witnesses?
All three issues will be addressed together with the following discussion.
It is a well-established rule of law in this Commonwealth that the party seeking to change venue must satisfy a heavy burden by pointing to record evidence of the claimed hardships imposed by plaintiffs choice of forum. See Okkerse v. Howe, 521 Pa. 509, 556 A.2d 827 (1989); Scribner v. Mack Tracks, 427 Pa.Super. 71, 628 A.2d 435 (1993).
The facts underlying this case are strikingly similar to those in Okkerse, supra. Okkerse involved an intersectional collision in Montgomery County in which one of the drivers, Mrs. Okkerse, was killed. Her husband filed suit, in Philadelphia County against the driver of the other vehicle, Ford Motor Company (the manufacturer of Mrs. Okkerse’s vehicle), property owners whose overgrown shrubs allegedly obscured vision at the intersection, various governmental agencies who allegedly had responsibility for controlling the intersection, and twenty-two property owners who allegedly owned the road leading to the intersection. Of all the defendants, the only connection to Philadelphia County was that Ford Motor Company and the Department of Transportation had offices there. One of the defendants in Okkerse1 filed a petition to transfer venue on the grounds oí forum non conveniens. The petition was granted, reversed by this court, and eventually appealed to the supreme court.
On appeal, the supreme court, affirming this court, concluded that the moving party’s failure to support the petition with record evidence required a denial of the petition to transfer.
Justice McDermott, writing for the majority in Okkerse, stressed the importance of the moving party’s development of *5a record to support the petition to transfer based upon the doctrine of forum non conveniens.
Thus, the party seeking a change of venue bears a heavy burden in justifying the request, and it has been consistently held that this burden includes the demonstration on the record of the claimed hardships. The Rules of Civil Procedure provide for a procedure whereby a complaining party can develop such a record, and this procedure has been recognized and endorsed by the Superior Court:
a proper procedure under Rule 1006(d)(1) necessarily implicates the requirements for petition and answer set forth in Pa.R.C.P. 206 through 209, including the taking of evidence by deposition or otherwise on disputed issues of fact.
Hosiery Corporation of America v. Rich, 327 Pa.Super. 472, 475, 476 A.2d 50, 51 (1984).
Okkerse at 518, 556 A.2d at 832 (emphasis in original).
Similarly, because there was no testimony or evidence provided by appellees on which the trial court might have based its decision we must reverse in this matter. Appellees failed to take any depositions, secure affidavits, or establish any record evidence, whatsoever. Instead, the trial court based its decision to transfer venue on the allegations of hardship and inconvenience raised in appellees’ petition.
However, as this court has previously held:
We refuse to sanction the transfer of a cause of action premised on the convenience of parties and witnesses on the mere allegation, specifically denied by plaintiff/appellant, of the petitioner.
Petty v. Suburban General Hospital, 363 Pa.Super. 277, 285, 525 A.2d 1230, 1234 (1987). Presently, many of the allegations in appellees’ petition, upon which the decision to transfer venue was based, were specifically denied by appellant in his response to the petition. For instance, appellant disputed that decedent was a resident of Bucks County prior to his death; that a significant number of non-party witnesses to the accident reside and/or work in Bucks County; that defendant *6Anthony DiLeonardo, Jr., resided in Bucks County at the time of the accident; that all sources of proof are located in Bucks and Montgomery Counties; and that Bucks County is a more convenient forum for all parties.
As this court has previously ruled, “[i]f the petitioner does not take Rule 209 discovery and the court does not order it, the court must, under Rule 209, consider as true all responsive allegations of fact in the answer to the petition.” Burns v. Pennsylvania Manufacturers Ass’n., 417 Pa.Super. 631, 635, 612 A.2d 1379, 1381 (1992) (emphasis in original). See also Alford v. Phil. Coca-Cola Bottling, 366 Pa.Super. 510, 531 A.2d 792 (1987). The lack of a record mandated that the allegations in appellant’s responsive pleading be accepted as true. Additionally, appellant did not merely rest on his responsive pleading, but rather appellant provided the trial court with testimonial affidavits from various parties and witnesses who stated that Philadelphia County would be a convenient forum. Appellees presented the trial court with no record evidence to weigh in their favor. Therefore, we cannot conclude as did the trial court that, based upon a weighing of the relevant factors, the balance was strongly in favor of appellees.2
While we recognize that the trial court has broad discretion in matters such as this, before it can order a transfer it must “find that transfer is more convenient for both parties to the action or for the witnesses,” Nicolosi v. Fittin, 434 Pa. 133, 135, 252 A.2d 700, 701 (1969) (emphasis in original). As noted by the Petty court, “[I]f the trial court has not held the defendant to the proper burden or has clearly erred in weighing the factors to be considered, the equivalent of an abuse of *7discretion has been demonstrated. Discretion must be exercised within the applicable standards.” Petty, 363 Pa.Super. at 282, 525 A.2d at 1232-33, quoting Reyno v. Piper Aircraft Co., 630 F.2d 149, 160 (3d Cir.1980) (citations omitted). Instantly, this court’s doubt concerning the decision to transfer is grounded in appellees’ failure to present any record evidence in support of their assertion that the transfer is more convenient for both parties and the witnesses.
Additionally, while this court recognizes that a trial court can consider matters of public interest as a basis for transfer without a supporting record, the lack of any record regarding private factors clearly serves to negate any meaningful balance of public and private factors to determine if they weigh so strongly in favor of the moving party as to warrant disturbing the plaintiffs choice of forum. While this court is sensitive to the tremendous burden placed on the judicial system in Philadelphia County because of an extremely heavy docket,3 we are required to adhere to the decisions of this court which have made clear that trial courts must exercise vigilance and not utilize venue transfers based upon the doctrine of forum non conveniens as a means of controlling their dockets.
A trial judge, acting under that doctrine, should only dismiss the action if the plaintiff has selected a clearly inappropriate forum. Rini v. New York Central Railroad Company [429 Pa. 235, 240 A.2d 372 (1968) ], Id. Although we certainly recognize the tremendous burdens placed upon our courts by inadequate and unreasonable funding limitations, such circumstances do not provide the basis for a forum non conveniens transfer of a case from one county to another, when venue is properly laid in the first county. See Horn v. *8Erie Insurance Exchange, supra, 373 Pa.Super. [186] at 189, 190, 540 A.2d [584] at 586 [ (1988) ], where we stated, ‘A trial court may not utilize a transfer of venue merely to control its docket, to preserve judicial resources, or to avoid deciding cases which are properly before it.’ As in Horn, it is evident in this case that neither the parties nor the trial court have demonstrated that it would have been more convenient for the litigants or their witnesses to try this action in Somerset County, rather than in Allegheny County or that the latter was a clearly inappropriate forum. Thus, under prevailing precedent, the trial court’s change of venue order was improper.
Greenfeig v. Seven Springs Farm, Inc., 416 Pa.Super. 580, 585-86, 611 A.2d 767, 770 (1992); Horn v. Erie Insurance Exchange, 373 Pa.Super. 186, 540 A.2d 584 (1988).
Accordingly, on this record and in light of the foregoing discussion, we cannot affirm the trial court’s decision to transfer venue in this case. Too often this court is being asked to review forum non conveniens cases where the petitioner has presented the trial court with either an inadequate record or no record at all. If this court is to be faithful to the notion that a plaintiffs choice of forum is entitled to weighty consideration, then, at the very least, we should be enforcing the requirement that the party seeking to change that venue fulfill its heavy burden with record proof of the claimed hardships. In the absence thereof, it appears that the forum non conveniens transfer has become nothing more than a docket-clearing device. Based on the published decisions of this court and our supreme court, we find such utilization to be an abuse of the procedure.
Accordingly, the order of the trial court granting the petition to transfer venue to Bucks County is hereby reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings. Jurisdiction is relinquished.
TAMILIA, J., files a Dissenting Opinion.

. There were actually two separate petitions for transfer filed before two different trial court judges in Okkerse. However, the intricacies of filings before the trial court are inconsequential to our discussion presently.

. For example, appellant/administrator himself stated in his affidavit that he is a Philadelphia resident and that a trial in Bucks County would be inconvenient for him. Additionally, decedent’s parents, residents of Florida, both stated in their affidavits that Philadelphia County would be a much more convenient forum for them. Although certainly not dispositive of our decision today, we are also troubled by the fact that one of the defendants in the present suit, Anthony DiLeonardo (the driver of the vehicle in which decedent was a passenger), has, himself, filed a lawsuit arising from this accident in Philadelphia County. This raises the very distinct possibility that these parties and witnesses may now be required to testify at two trials in two separate counties.

. It should be noted that the author of the instant Opinion also authored this court's decision in German v. AC & S, Inc., 430 Pa.Super. 497, 635 A.2d 159 (1993). In German, this court, recognizing the tremendous burden placed upon the Philadelphia courts by the asbestos docket, specifically approved special procedures for forum non conveniens venue transfers in such cases. Concluding that the trial court had devised a well-planned system which was published and provided in advance to all concerned counsel, we allowed for the special procedure in considering venue transfer petitions in asbestos cases.