Lehman v. Humphrey Cayman, Ltd.

• Decision Date: 19 July 1983
• Docket Number: No. 82-1645,82-1645
• Citation: 713 F.2d 339
• Parties: Victoria A. LEHMAN, as Executor of the Estate of Robert Wayne Lehman, deceased, Appellant, v. HUMPHREY CAYMAN, LTD. and Holiday Inns, Inc., Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 339

713 F.2d 339

Victoria A. LEHMAN, as Executor of the Estate of Robert Wayne Lehman, deceased, Appellant, v. HUMPHREY CAYMAN, LTD. and Holiday Inns, Inc., Appellees.

No. 82-1645.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Feb. 14, 1983.

Decided July 19, 1983.

Minor Barnes, Matthew G. Novak, Pickens, Barnes & Abernathy, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for appellant.

James W. Crawford, Elizabeth A. Brown, Crawford, Sullivan & Read, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for appellees.

Before LAY, Chief Judge, and BRIGHT and ROSS, Circuit Judges.

LAY, Chief Judge.

Victoria Lehman appeals from the district court's dismissal of her wrongful death action against the defendants. The district court dismissed the action on the ground of forum non conveniens, holding that it would be more convenient for the suit to be brought in the Cayman Islands, British West Indies. We reverse and remand to the district court with directions to reinstate the suit.

Lehman's action stems from the presumed death of her husband, Robert Wayne Lehman, while he was a guest at the Grand Caymanian Holiday Inn in the Cayman Islands. Victoria Lehman is a citizen of the State of Iowa, as was Robert Lehman before his death. Humphrey Cayman, Ltd., is a corporation organized under the laws of the Cayman Islands, and maintains corporate offices in Tennessee. Humphrey Cayman owns and operates the Grand Caymanian Holiday Inn, and is a franchisee of Holiday Inns. Holiday Inns is a Tennessee corporation, and maintains a registered agent in Iowa.

Robert Lehman and his son were guests of the Grand Caymanian Holiday Inn for several days in November 1980. On November 21, Robert Lehman rented a 16-foot "Hobie Cat" sailboat from a sailboat rental shop, Bob Soto's Diving Ltd., located on the hotel premises. Robert and two other persons set sail on the Caribbean Sea. Several hours later, observers informed the manager of the sailboat rental shop that Robert Lehman's sailboat was not visible from the shore. An air search was launched. Searchers eventually discovered only the wreckage of the sailboat; Lehman and his two companions are presumed dead.

Victoria Lehman brought suit in the federal district court for the Northern District of Iowa, alleging that the defendants breached express and implied warranties that the hotel and its facilities, including the rental shop and its sailboat, were safe for their intended uses, and that the defendants were negligent in failing to exercise the due care required of an innkeeper for the protection of its guest. The defendants moved to dismiss, arguing inter alia that the district court had no personal jurisdiction over the defendants, and that if personal jurisdiction did exist the action should be dismissed pursuant to the doctrine of forum non conveniens.

The district court held that it possessed personal jurisdiction over the defendants, but it agreed with the defendants that the Cayman Islands was the more convenient forum in which this suit should be litigated. The district court held that, after it considered the factors enunciated by the Supreme Court in Gulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert, 330 U.S. 501, 508-09, 67 S.Ct. 839, 843, 91 L.Ed. 1055 (1947), it was "convinced that the interests of convenience require the dismissal of this action."

Analysis.

The determination of whether an action should be dismissed on the ground of forum non conveniens is committed to the sound discretion of the district court, and will be overturned only upon a showing of an abuse of that discretion. In Gilbert, the Supreme Court held:

Wisely, it has not been attempted to catalogue the circumstances which will justify or require either grant or denial of remedy. The doctrine leaves much to the discretion of the court to which plaintiff resorts, and experience has not shown a judicial tendency to renounce one's own jurisdiction so strong as to result in many abuses.

330 U.S. at 508, 67 S.Ct. at 843 (footnote omitted).

Although perhaps no list of factors is exhaustive, the Supreme Court in Gilbert enunciated private and public concerns a trial court must consider when it decides whether to dismiss a case on the ground of forum non conveniens:

If the combination and weight of factors requisite to given results are difficult to forecast or state, those to be considered are not difficult to name. An interest to be considered, and the one likely to be most pressed, is the private interest of the litigant. Important considerations are the relative ease of access to sources of proof; availability of compulsory process for attendance of unwilling, and the cost of obtaining attendance of willing, witnesses; possibility of view of premises, if view would be appropriate to the action; and all other practical problems that make trial of a case easy, expeditious and inexpensive. There may also be questions as to the enforcibility of a judgment if one is obtained. The court will weigh relative advantages and obstacles to fair trial. It is often said that the plaintiff may not, by choice of an inconvenient forum, "vex," "harrass," or "oppress" the defendant by inflicting upon him expense or trouble not necessary to his own right to pursue his remedy. But unless the balance is strongly in favor of the defendant, the plaintiff's choice of forum should rarely be disturbed.

Factors of public interest also have place in applying the doctrine. Administrative difficulties follow for courts when litigation is piled up in congested centers instead of being handled at its origin. Jury duty is a burden that ought not to be imposed upon the people of a community which has no relation to the litigation. In cases which touch the affairs of many persons, there is reason for holding the trial in their view and reach rather than in remote parts of the country where they can learn of it by report only. There is a local interest in having localized controversies decided at home. There is an appropriateness, too, in having the trial of a diversity case in a forum that is at home with the state law that must govern the case, rather than having a court in some other forum untangle problems in conflict of laws, and in law foreign to itself.

330 U.S. at 508-09, 67 S.Ct. at 843 (footnotes omitted).

The district court, relying upon Gilbert, found that relevant private and public interest factors required dismissal of the action. Of the various private factors listed in Gilbert, the trial court discounted the relative ease of access to sources of proof and the possibility of a view of the premises. However, the court found dispositive (1) the fact that the defendants do not have available compulsory process for attendance of witnesses who live in the Cayman Islands and (2) the fact that the defendants would not be able to implead Bob Soto's Diving Ltd., the sailboat rental shop, in a federal forum in Iowa. The trial court also found that the place of Lehman's death provided the Cayman Islands with the more significant "local interest" and that the substantive law of the Cayman Islands would control the case. Therefore, the court held that the interests of convenience required the dismissal of the action.

We may disturb the district court's decision only if we find an abuse of discretion; simply to disagree with the district court as if the facts had been presented to this court in the first instance cannot be the basis of our decision. Paper Operations Consultants International, Ltd. v. SS Hong Kong Amber, 513 F.2d 667, 670 (9th Cir.1975).

Although the Supreme Court has ruled that the plaintiff's residence is not to be given dispositive weight in ruling on a motion for dismissal under the doctrine of forum non conveniens, it is nonetheless a significant concern to be considered by the trial court. Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno, 454 U.S. 235, 255, 102 S.Ct. 252, 265, 70 L.Ed.2d 419 (1981) (the presumption in favor of the plaintiff's choice of forum applies with less force when the plaintiff or real parties in interest are foreign).

In addition, earlier Supreme Court decisions have emphasized the deference to be given a plaintiff's choice of forum. In Koster v. (American) Lumbermens Mutual Casualty Co., 330 U.S. 518, 67 S.Ct. 828, 91 L.Ed. 1067 (1947), the Court stated that "[i]n any balancing of conveniences, a real showing of convenience by a plaintiff who has sued in his home forum will normally outweigh the inconvenience the defendant may have shown. " Id. at 524, 67 S.Ct. at 831. In Gilbert, relied upon by the district court, the Supreme Court admonished that "unless the balance is strongly in favor of the defendant, the plaintiff's choice of forum should rarely be disturbed," 330 U.S. at 508, 67 S.Ct. at 843, and that jurisdiction is to be declined only in "exceptional circumstances," id. at 504, 67 S.Ct. at 841.

Courts of appeals have reinforced these considerations. In Founding Church of Scientology v. Verlag, 536 F.2d 429 (D.C.Cir.1976), the court observed:

[C]ourts should require positive evidence of unusually extreme circumstances, and should be thoroughly convinced that material injustice is manifest before exercising any such discretion to deny a citizen access to the courts of this country.

Id. at 435, quoting Burt v. Isthmus Development Co., 218 F.2d 353, 357 (5th Cir.1955).

See also Pain v. United Technologies Corp., 637 F.2d 775 (D.C.Cir.1980), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1128, 102 S.Ct. 980, 71 L.Ed.2d 116 (1981), in which the court held:

Thus, the plaintiff's choice of forum is more than just one factor that the trial judge must consider when balancing equities between two alternative forums. Trial judges do not have unchecked discretion to dismiss cases from a plaintiff's chosen forum simply because another forum, in the court's view, may be superior to that chosen by the plaintiff.

637 F.2d at 783 (footnote omitted).

See also Manu International, S.A. v. Avon Products, Inc., 641 F.2d 62, 65 (2d Cir.1981) ("Emphasis on the district court's discretion,...