Court Opinion

ID: 9844944
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:12:20.678928+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:47.936099
License: Public Domain

NEELY, Justice,
dissenting in part:
The majority opinion is so thoroughly researched and so well written that a long dissent is unnecessary. As the majority correctly concedes, the decision in this case is based entirely upon a policy decision by this Court that non-taxpayer, out-of-state railway workers shall be able to use the *732fora of this State to litigate FELA cases when they find a defendant doing business here.
First I would point out the obvious: this is a context specific decision. This case does not preclude circuit courts in other cases from applying the doctrine of forum non conveniens. Furthermore, there was no well developed factual record before us concerning the effect of large numbers of foreign FELA cases on the docket of the Brooke County Circuit Court. Given that the majority in this case is narrow, I believe it entirely appropriate to raise the issue again even with respect to FELA cases, when a good factual record concerning the implications of mass tort litigation on the local docket can be presented. I dissent because I believe that opening the courts of this state to mass tort litigation by foreign plaintiffs who have no contacts here is eminently ill-advised.
I
Under W.Va. Const. art. VI, § 51 relating to the State budget, which says, “[p]ro-vided, that no item relating to the judiciary shall be decreased ...” West Virginia has the best funded state court system in the United States. Although the salary of judges and their numbers are set by the legislature, the number of supporting personnel and the level of logistical support for the courts are entirely within the discretion of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. Unlike many other states that have clogged dockets because of deliberate political decisions to undermine the courts because they are engines for the redistribution of wealth, this State is blessed with adequate judicial machinery for our current needs. In most circuits jury trials can be had almost immediately if the parties are ready.
Although the average West Virginia court user will find legitimate grounds to complain about our system, in comparison to other systems, our system works reasonably well. But it is the residents of this State who have paid for our system and it is now out-of-state, non-taxpaying plaintiffs who seek to use it. Much as I would like to bring the blessings of West Virginia’s judicial system to all mankind, a court system is little different from a Kroger store: if a Kroger store gives away meat and vegetables to people who can’t pay, there will soon be no meat and vegetables for the paying customers.
Throughout a free economy the price system is usually the mechanism chosen to regulate the allocation of scarce goods and services. When a good or service is in high demand but short supply, the price goes up and users with the least urgent need or the least money drop out of the market. Price-system rationing, however, presents a significant equity problem: those with the most money get the most goods and services. Consequently, when necessities of life are in short supply, like food during World War II or medicine during an epidemic, there is broad social resistance to allowing price-system rationing. Certainly we have even greater reservations about the equity of price-system rationing in the civil justice system.
Because there is no price-system rationing in the civil justice system, courts are like a traditional common in an English agricultural village where everyone has the right to graze livestock on the pasturage held in common. Any rational farmer will graze all his sheep or cattle on the common, notwithstanding that if everyone does the same thing the common will degenerate, and everyone’s livestock will suffer from malnutrition. Any time a good or service is provided free of charge, it is in everyone’s interest to get as much as he can because he cannot expect his own fore-bearance to be followed by everyone else’s. That is why in such circumstances explicit regulation is required, like the fish and game laws that every state now enforces to ensure that wildlife will not be hunted to extinction. It is also the rationale for the doctrine of forum non conveniens in state courts.
Every time demand for a good or service exceeds supply, some rationing system, either price or non-price, will go into effect. In the case of the unregulated and thus overused common, the quality of the pas*733ture degenerates to such an extent that the weaker livestock die and leave enough for those who are strong enough to survive. It is merely luck whether a farmer has a strong or weak cow; if farmers keep replenishing the livestock that die so that more of them continue to die, then the farmers who are the last to run out of money to buy livestock ultimately get the benefit of the whole common. That is not a very intelligent system of rationing but it is a system of rationing nonetheless.
In the communist world, particularly Russia, rationing is accomplished by the political authorities. The “bidding up of prices” is not done in the monetary currency but rather in the political currency. Those with influence and official positions can shop in special stores that have stocks of desirable goods. Regular stores charge the same price as the special stores, but the regular stores never have any goods to sell.
When neither the price-system nor the political system is allowed to ration, however, then goods and services will be rationed by other natural mechanisms. The most common of these mechanisms in the United States is standing in line. We apply this rationing system to tickets to rock concerts, tickets to the West Virginia-Penn State game, and to our courts.
Litigants can take as much of the goods and services of the courts as they want when their turn comes up. In most places, of course, their turn doesn’t come up very often because of the length of the queue. That’s why the plaintiffs before us are coming here. Unfortunately, the people who can afford to stand in line the longest are not necessarily the people who have the most urgent need to litigate, yet our egalitarian tradition prohibits the sale of one’s place in line to someone with a more pressing need for court services.
What concerns me, then, about the case before us is that the litigation of out-of-state FELA cases may well cause delay for local residents with urgent domestic problems, important contract matters (delay in the decision of which may lead to local bankruptcies) and serious personal injuries where the litigants may be destitute until some court awards them a judgment. In addition, it should be remembered that Brooke County has a population of only 31,117 people, which means that if a great deal of out-of-state tort litigation is conducted there, calls to jury duty may become unduly burdensome. It is one thing to say that jury duty is an obligation of citizenship with regard to deciding the disputes within one’s community; it is quite another to impose this involuntary servitude for the benefit of total strangers, the courts of whose states would not return the favor.
II
Finally, I would point out that Judge Robert Merhige of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and Judge Thomas D. Lambros of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Ohio have devised superb mechanisms for handling mass tort litigation that place the additional costs of such litigation squarely upon the shoulders of the litigants.1
It seems perfectly reasonable to me that if we are to offer our fora to out-of-state litigants, the least that they can do is underwrite some of the extra costs associated with their litigation that would otherwise be borne by our taxpayers. Such mechanisms as privately paid special masters, privately paid advisory juries to assist in determining damages for court supervised settlements, and other litigant-financed contributions to the courts’ logistical support all seem to me entirely appropriate.
I am authorized to say that Justice BROTHERTON joins with me in this dissent.

. Judge Lambros, at my request, has been kind enough to forward to us all of the form orders, discovery procedures, special master appointment orders, and other material necessary to set up machinery similar to that now used in mass tort cases in the U.S. district courts. This material is available to our judges and lawyers through the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals library.