Court Opinion

ID: 9884756
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 03:10:53.318141+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:55.257471
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Schaefer, dissenting. The majority opinion has at last buried the myth that the doctrine of forum non conveniens cannot be applied to F.E.L.A. cases. To that extent I agree with it. (Cf. People ex rel. Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Co. v. Clark, 12 Ill.2d 515, 527ff.) But the opinion goes further and lays down a special rule to govern the application of the doctrine to E.E.L.A. cases. Moreover, it fails, in my opinion, to appraise correctly the factors that should govern this case. And for these reasons I dissent. This case arose out of an accident that happened in Covington, Kentucky, about 350 miles from East St. Louis, Illinois, where the plaintiff brought his action. The defendant does business in Illinois. The plaintiff was referred by his lawyer to some doctors who practice in Illinois and they examined him and testified in his behalf. No other circumstance connects this case with Illinois. I assume that the plaintiff selected the distant forum that he chose because he thought that he could get a higher verdict there than he could at home. Obviously it was otherwise less convenient and more expensive for him. It is not suggested that there are no lawyers in Covington or across the river in Cincinnati who are competent to try his case, nor does the record suggest that there is a lack of competent doctors in those communities. It is better, I think, to pass without comment the inference that the economic well being of the plaintiff’s lawyer and the doctors that his lawyer hired to examine him and to testify for him is a relevant consideration. Under our adversary system of litigation it can be assumed that both litigants want a favorable forum. Those desires cancel out, and there is left for a court to> consider, first the relative capacities of the two forums to' furnish the essentials of a fair trial, such as the power to compel the attendance of witnesses and the production of documents and to afford the jury an opportunity to view the scene if that is appropriate, and second, the relative convenience of the witnesses and the parties. What is needed for decision is an unprejudiced appraisal of the competing claims of the two forums. I do not find that kind of an appraisal in the majority opinion. As the opinion points out, there was no dispute about the fact that Cotton had a herniated disc at the time of the trial. What the jury had to determine was the extent to which that condition was related to the events of August 20, 1955. Cotton had suffered an earlier back injury which was not connected with his employment. He was hospitalized from December 31, 1954, to January 5, 1955, because of that injury, and he was away from his work for 26 days. His own doctor, a Dr. Colder, referred him to a Dr. Cofield and to Dr. Salsbery, the same orthopedic specialist who testified in this case. Neither Dr. Colder nor Dr. Cofield testified. Dr. Salsbery testified that it was his opinion, when he examined the plaintiff in February of 1955? that in all probability he then had a herniated disc between two vertebrae higher in the back than those involved in the August injury. Upon the evidence that was made available to it the jury has resolved the dispute as to the bearing of the two injuries upon the plaintiff’s condition. I agree with the majority that the defendant’s motion should have stated with more particularity what testimony was expected from the nonresident witnesses, even though, for tactical reasons, it may have been reluctant to do so. But I would have more confidence in the verdict if the trial had been held where all of the doctors who actually treated the plaintiff for his earlier injury were subject to subpoena or could have testified without unreasonable interference with their professional responsibilities. The opinion disregards entirely the interests of those who were drawn by chance into the dispute. Any trial necessarily disrupts the lives of others than the immediate parties to the suit. Some disruption of that kind is unavoidable, because the administration of justice can not wait upon the convenience of witnesses and jurors. But the law has long been concerned to hold to a minimum the inconvenience that it causes. That factor should not be disregarded, as it is in this case. Illinois courts have jurisdiction over the defendant in this case because it is “doing business” here. The notion that a corporation could exist only in the State of its incorporation made necessary the development of the jurisdictional concept that a foreign corporation consents to the exercise of jurisdiction over it by “doing business” in the forum State. That concept, however, is of diminishing significance today. It has yielded to realistic considerations of the fairness of permitting the foreign corporation or the nonresident individual to be sued in the forum State. (International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 90 L. ed. 95; Nelson v. Miller, 11 Ill.2d 378.) Under this new approach to problems of jurisdiction the doctrine of forum non conveniens will assume increased importance, and its flavor of procedural due process, already strong, will be enhanced. 326 U.S. at 317; 11 Ill.2d at 391. While the opinion properly rejects the argument that section 6 of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act compels State courts “to entertain all F.E.L.A. cases, despite their origin in remote areas,” it seems nevertheless somehow to derive from that section a special rule to govern the application of forum non conveniens to those cases. I find nothing in section 6 or elsewhere that justifies the creation of a separate standard for this particular class of cases, and the opinion advances no reason for the arbitrary creation of a special category. In my opinion these cases should be governed by the same standards that apply to others. Because the opinion refers to an anonymous estimate of the relationship between the filing fees paid in Cook County by nonresident litigants in F.E.L.A. cases and the amount of fees paid to jurors in those cases, it is appropriate to mention the only relevant statistics that exist. A reputable member of the bar studied all of the cases that were tried to juries in the circuit court of Cook County during the period from September 12, 1955, to November 18, 1955. The result of that study is of record in this court. More than seventeen per cent of all of the time spent by juries during that period was spent on cases brought against railroads to recover for personal injuries that occurred outside the State of Illinois. Not all of the cases were F.E.L.A. cases, and some of them might have survived a proper application of forum non conveniens. Even so, this tabulation, the accuracy of which has not been challenged, impressively demonstrates the substantial burden that these cases represent. Mr. Chief Justice Davis concurs in this dissent.