Court Opinion

ID: 9745352
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:50:52.435903+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:26:22.527162
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE GOLDENHERSH, dissenting: I dissent. In order to take this case at all it was necessary to conclude that the appellate court abused discretion in denying leave to appeal (see 94 Ill. 2d R. 306(a)(ii)), and to reverse the order denying the motion required the majority to hold that the circuit court also abused discretion. The record sustains neither conclusion. As I pointed out in my dissent in Foster v. Chicago & North Western Transportation Co. (1984), 102 Ill. 2d 378, somewhere between Espinosa v. Norfolk & Western Ry. Co. (1981), 86 Ill. 2d Ill, and Foster, the doctrine of forum non conveniens underwent a transmutation. The application of the doctrine no longer required that there be “another forum that can better serve the convenience of the parties and the ends of justice.” The key element became that the case “should be tried in a forum with a greater connection to the parties and the occurrence that forms the gravamen of the complaint.” Foster v. Chicago & North Western Transportation Co. (1984), 102 Ill. 2d 378, 385. The majority attempts to present a scenario contrasting the convenience of trying this case in Midland, Michigan, and the alleged inconvenience of being required to try it in Chicago. I am certain that the lawyers who try cases in the courts of this or any other jurisdiction will be surprised to learn that a jury trial “may be squeezed into empty spaces in the court calendar, sometimes with continuances in between.” (106 Ill. 2d at 230.) I am certain, too, that they will be surprised to learn that insuring the return of a witness who has appeared and testified presents any difficulty, since the simple act of serving a subpoena will accomplish that result. I am also reasonably certain that the length of the average time from filing until verdict which the majority finds appalling is to a great extent caused by the delays engendered in the disposition of motions to dismiss on grounds of forum non conveniens. In this day of instant communications and rapid transportation the fact that a litigant is required to try a lawsuit 283 miles distant from the scene of the occurrence involved can scarcely be said to be a matter of great inconvenience. Defendant has not suggested any witnesses which it intends to produce at trial other than to indicate that it might call certain individuals whom either the plaintiff or the railroad intends to call. Any representations concerning the likelihood of “live” medical testimony should be considered in the light of the fact that in the records reviewed by this court in recent years substantially all of the medical testimony was presented by deposition. It requires no citation of authority to state that a reviewing court should not find that there has been an abuse of discretion unless the opposite result is clearly apparent. That is not the situation here, and I would affirm the circuit court.