Court Opinion

ID: 9638359
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:42:03.054459+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:33:16.428870
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
While I do not wholly share my brothers’ conviction of the comparative advantages shown by the California action over the one below — any modern civil action being capable of expansion to fit the needs of the occasion — I have no serious concern as to giving a preference to that action. Had that been granted by means of a transfer of the action under the new 28 U.S.C.A. § 1404(a) or even by a stay, I should say no more. But it is a serious matter, I suggest, for a court to take the position of refusing all jurisdiction to a litigant with an unadjudicated cause quite within the court’s statutory authority. Jurisdiction to litigate is not something to be granted or withheld by a court at its wish or convenience. I discern a growing tendency in the congested Southern District of New York to look for excuses to push a case off the docket; even though I sympathize with the difficult situation facing overworked judges, I cannot believe this a permissible course or one fair to litigants. Under § 1404(a), it seems to me the remedy must now be limited to transfer.