Court Opinion

ID: 9770972
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:26:52.621083+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:23.375061
License: Public Domain

RICKHOFF, Justice,
concurring.
If essential need is given its common meaning, it is impossible for intrastate plaintiffs to join mass tort litigation. Each out-of-eounty plaintiff, e.g. a Diane Moore from Collin County, would be required to maintain her individual suit in the county of surgery and each defendant would have to defend essentially the same case with different plaintiffs repeatedly across the state. This mechanical reading of essential need does not lead to a reasonable or fair outcome for complex litigation. Trial courts must recognize the need for mutual support and be free to balance the interests of economy for the courts and litigants against the danger of allowing joinder merely for a theoretically more sympathetic forum.
Polaris was an abusive joinder case in which puffing hyperbole enticed thousands of plaintiffs to Texas’s most remote venue. See Polaris Inv. Management Corp. v. Abascal, 890 S.W.2d 486 (Tex.App.—San Antonio 1994, orig. proceeding) (Rickhoff, J., concurring), leave denied, 892 S.W.2d 860 (Tex. 1995). The case provoked an overreaction in the Poiarisconeurrence (panel member Judge Peeples wisely declined to join). Along with other abusive joinder cases, it made for the legislature’s rather draconian essential need requirement. We must make the limits on joinder reasonable so intrastate plaintiffs can achieve mutual support, which in turn results in judicial economy.
I do not find it overly chauvinistic to recognize these out-of-state plaintiffs as Polaris forum shoppers. Eighty-five plaintiffs from Illinois traveled 1000 miles from their doctors, taking Illinois law and seeking the verdict of a Bexar County jury. As we indicated in footnote 7, the proper way to remove them is by granting a traditional forum non conveniens motion.
I join the majority because I believe it is impractical for intrastate plaintiffs to “go it alone,” yet we must not thwart the legislative intent by failing to curb abusive joinder tactics.