Court Opinion

ID: 9428542
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:24:05.730539+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:14.136781
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
with whom Justice Brennan joins, dissenting.
In No. 80-848, only one question is presented for review to this Court:
“Whether, in an action in federal district court brought by foreign plaintiffs against American defendants, the plaintiffs may defeat a motion to dismiss on the ground of *262forum non conveniens merely by showing that the substantive law that would be applied if the case were litigated in the district court is more favorable to them than the law that would be applied by the courts of their own nation.” Pet. for Cert, in No. 80-848, p. i.
In No. 80-883, the Court limited its grant of certiorari, see 450 U. S. 909, to the same question:
“Must a motion to dismiss on grounds of forum non conveniens be denied whenever the law of the alternate forum is less favorable to recovery than that which would be applied by the district court? ” Pet. for Cert, in No. 80-883, p. i.
I agree that this question should be answered in the negative. Having decided that question, I would simply remand the case to the Court of Appeals for further consideration of the question whether the District Court correctly decided that Pennsylvania was not a convenient forum in which to litigate a claim against a Pennsylvania company that a plane was defectively designed and manufactured in Pennsylvania.