Esfeld v. Costa Crociere, S.P.A., No. 01-11072.

• Decision Date: 30 April 2002
• Docket Number: No. 01-11072.,No. 01-11074.,No. 01-11073.
• Citation: 289 F.3d 1300
• Parties: Patricia ESFELD, Donald Esfeld, her husband, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. COSTA CROCIERE, S.P.A., a foreign corporation doing business in Miami-Dade County, Florida, Defendant-Appellee. Eleanor Cohon, Julian Cohon, her husband, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Costa Crociere, S.P.A., a foreign corporation, Defendant-Appellee. Belle Bestor, Stanley Bestor, her husband, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Costa Crociere, S.P.A., a foreign corporation doing business in Miami-Dade County, Florida, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

289 F.3d 1300

Patricia ESFELD, Donald Esfeld, her husband, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. COSTA CROCIERE, S.P.A., a foreign corporation doing business in Miami-Dade County, Florida, Defendant-Appellee.

Eleanor Cohon, Julian Cohon, her husband, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Costa Crociere, S.P.A., a foreign corporation, Defendant-Appellee.

Belle Bestor, Stanley Bestor, her husband, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Costa Crociere, S.P.A., a foreign corporation doing business in Miami-Dade County, Florida, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 01-11072.

No. 01-11073.

No. 01-11074.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

April 30, 2002.

Joel S. Perwin, Podhurst, Orseck, Josefsberg, Eaton, Meadow, Olin & Perwin, P.A., Miami, FL, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Stephanie H. Wylie, David J. Horr, Horr, Linfors & Skipp, P.A., Miami, FL, for Defendant-Appellee.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Before BIRCH and WILSON, Circuit Judges, and DOWD^*, District Judge.

BIRCH, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff-Appellants Belle and Stanley Bestor, Eleanor and Julian Cohon, and Patricia and Donald Esfeld challenge the district court's dismissal of their diversity suits brought against Costa Crociere, S.P.A. ("Costa"), for personal injuries that they sustained while on a guided van tour of Vietnam. The question on appeal is whether, under the Erie¹ doctrine, state or federal law on forum non conveniens should apply in diversity cases. Since we disagree with the district court's conclusion that state law should apply, we REVERSE.

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Automobile Accident in Vietnam

These consolidated cases arise out of an accident that occurred during a guided van tour through the Da Nang area of Vietnam. Appellants are three elderly married couples who were injured in the accident, which occurred in January of 1994. All three couples are United States citizens, the Bestors residing in the State of California, and the Cohons and Esfelds residing in the State of Washington. At the time of the accident, the Appellants were on a Western Pacific cruise that had begun in Singapore and was set to terminate in Hong Kong. The cruise ship upon which they were traveling, the OCEAN PEARL, was owned and operated by Costa.

The three couples had contracted with Costa in 1993 to take the 13-night cruise of the Western Pacific aboard the OCEAN PEARL. Although Costa is an Italian corporation,² the Appellants have argued throughout this litigation that all of Costa's marketing, advertising, and sales for the United States are done through an office in Miami with over 110 employees. These marketing and sales activities, the Appellants assert, generate between 30,000 and 52,000 United States customers per year. They also argue that Costa advertises in all major United States markets, runs an Internet site from Miami, and issues cruise brochures that list Miami as its address. According to the Appellants, the advertising was successful with respect to them, for they contracted for the Western Pacific cruise only after receiving uninvited solicitations in the United States from Costa, through American travel agents. The travel agents booked the cruise for them, and arrangements for the trip then were made through a company affiliated with Costa that was located in South Florida. It is as a result of these Miami-based sales activities by Costa, the Appellants maintain, that they contracted for the Western Pacific cruise that took them to Vietnam.

The 13-night cruise upon the OCEAN PEARL began smoothly, but events changed for the worse on or about 19 January 1994, when the cruise ship was docked in the Vietnam port of call. The Appellants made arrangements through Costa staff to take a guided van tour into the Da Nang area. The Appellants allege that they paid Costa for the excursion and that, as a result, Costa staff made all the necessary preparations for the tour, including selection of a van driver. During the tour, the van driver lost control of the vehicle, causing the vehicle to slam into an embankment and to roll over into a ditch. Severely injured, the Appellants discontinued the rest of their cruise trip. They then returned home to the United States for medical treatment.

B. The Florida State Court Proceedings

After returning to the United States, the Bestors, the Cohons, and the Esfelds filed separate personal injury actions against Costa in the state court in and for Miami-Dade County, Florida.³ Costa moved to dismiss the three lawsuits based on the doctrine of forum non conveniens,⁴ but the trial court denied the motion in each case. Costa filed an interlocutory appeal to challenge the denial of its motion in the Bestors' case, but it chose not to file an appeal in either the Cohons' case or the Esfelds' case. On appeal, Florida's Third District Court of Appeal (the "Third District") reversed the trial court, concluding that the Bestors' case should be dismissed on forum non conveniens grounds. See Pearl Cruises v. Bestor, 678 So.2d 372 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1996). The Third District ruled that Italy provided a more proper forum for the litigation, since Costa had consented to the jurisdiction of the Italian courts and had agreed to waive reliance on any statute of limitations. The Third District stated in conclusion that the Bestors were "free to bring suit in any other jurisdiction which [would] entertain it." Id. at 373.

In its ruling, the Third District relied on Kinney System, 674 So.2d at 93, in which the Florida Supreme Court adopted federal forum non conveniens law as the appropriate standard for Florida state courts. In the Bestors' case, however, the Third District applied that standard in a manner different from how federal courts have applied it. Specifically, the Third District, in addressing the forum non conveniens issue, focused on Florida's connection to and interest in the case, concluding that the Bestors' lawsuit had "no meaningful relationship to Florida whatever" and that "Florida's interests in [the] litigation [were] next to non-existent." Bestor, 678 So.2d at 372. In contrast, federal courts, in the forum non conveniens context, do not focus on the connection between the case and a particular state, but rather on the connection of the case to the United States as a whole. See La Seguridad v. Transytur Line, 707 F.2d 1304, 1308 (11th Cir.1983) (focusing on the relation between the claims and issues raised by the plaintiffs and the United States). Thus, unlike a federal court, the Third District dismissed the Bestors' lawsuit without considering whether the suit had any important connections with a United States jurisdiction located beyond Florida's borders.

Upon dismissal of their lawsuit, the Bestors petitioned the Florida Supreme Court for review, but their petition was denied. See Bestor v. Pearl Cruises, 689 So.2d 1068 (Fla.1997). With the Bestors' case successfully dismissed, Costa renewed its motion to dismiss on forum non conveniens grounds in the two cases brought by the Cohons and the Esfelds, respectively. The trial court again denied the motions. The court reasoned that since Costa could have filed an interlocutory appeal from the denial of its first motion in the Cohons' and the Esfelds' cases, Costa had waived its forum non conveniens objection.

The Third District consolidated the suits of the Cohons and the Esfelds on appeal and reversed the trial court, concluding that its forum non conveniens analysis in the Bestors' case was controlling. See Pearl Cruises v. Cohon, 728 So.2d 1226 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1999) (per curiam). In reaching this result, the Third District specifically noted that in the forum non conveniens context, Florida courts, unlike federal courts, are only permitted to consider the contacts that a lawsuit has with the State of Florida, given that "Florida courts' territorial jurisdiction is confined to the state boundaries." Id. at 1228 n. *; see also Fla. R. Civ. Pro. 1.061 (explaining that "[a]n action may be dismissed on the ground that a satisfactory remedy may be more conveniently sought in a jurisdiction other than Florida") (emphasis added). The Third District concluded by stating that "[a]s in Bestor, the plaintiffs [were] free to refile in Italy or in any other jurisdiction which [would] entertain the cases." Cohon, 728 So.2d at 1228. The Florida Supreme Court then denied the petition of the Cohons and the Esfelds for review. See Cohon v. Pearl Cruises, 744 So.2d 453 (Fla.1999).

C. The Federal District Court Proceedings

1. The District Court's Forum Non Conveniens Decision

The Florida Supreme Court having denied review, the Bestors filed a diversity action against Costa in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, alleging the same personal injury torts raised in the Florida state court proceedings.⁵ Costa responded by filing a motion to dismiss on several grounds. Among other things, Costa asserted in its motion that the Bestors' federal lawsuit should be dismissed based either on the doctrine of collateral estoppel or on the doctrine of forum non conveniens. The district court, in an order written by Chief Judge Edward B. Davis, denied the motion to dismiss.

In its order, the district court first turned to the collateral estoppel issue. The court noted that under Florida law, collateral estoppel bars parties from relitigating issues that already have been decided in a previous lawsuit only if there are identical parties and issues in both lawsuits. See West Point Constr. Co. v. Fidelity & Deposit Co. of Maryland, 515 So.2d 1374, 1376 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1987). The district court concluded that the forum non conveniens issues raised in the previous Florida state case and in the instant federal diversity case were not identical. The court reached this conclusion because Florida's Third District, in its forum non conveniens analysis, focused on the connections between the Bestors' suit and the state of Florida. In...