AT & T CORP. v. Sigala

• Decision Date: 16 July 2001
• Docket Number: No. S01A0464, No. S01A0465.
• Citation: 549 S.E.2d 373,274 Ga. 137
• Parties: AT & T CORPORATION et al., v. SIGALA et al. AT & T Corporation et al., v. Perez et al.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

549 S.E.2d 373

274 Ga. 137

AT & T CORPORATION et al., v. SIGALA et al.

AT & T Corporation et al., v. Perez et al.

Nos. S01A0464, S01A0465.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

July 16, 2001.

Reconsideration Denied July 26, 2001.

Troutman Sanders, Norman L. Underwood, William N. Withrow, Jr., Lynette E. Smith, Atlanta, for appellants.

Cummings, Cummings & Dedenhefer, John L. Cummings, III, Frank C. Dudenhefer, Jr., Richard M. Martin, Jr., New Orleans, LA, Knight & Marlowe, Terry J. Marlowe, Albany, L. Katherine Adams, Decatur, Lambert & Nelson, Hugh P. Lambert, Linda J. Nelson, New Orleans, La, for appellees. FLETCHER, Chief Justice.

Cruz Sigala, Ligia Pacheco de Perez and other citizens of the Republic of Venezuela filed these wrongful death and personal injury actions against AT & T Corporation and its Atlanta employees as a result of a 1993 gas pipeline explosion in Venezuela. The defendants moved to dismiss on the basis of forum non conveniens, which the trial court denied due to the absence of statutory authority. We granted AT & T's petition for certiorari to consider whether a Georgia trial court has the inherent authority to dismiss a lawsuit that nonresident aliens bring for injuries occurring on foreign soil. Following the majority of states, we adopt the doctrine of forum non conveniens and hold that Georgia courts may exercise their inherent power and dismiss cases involving nonresident aliens when an adequate alternative forum exists and dismissal serves the interests of justice and convenience of the parties. Therefore, we reverse.

FACTS

A gas pipeline ruptured in Tejerias, Venezuela when a rotoexcavator machine struck the line while digging a trench for a fiber-optic telephone cable. The explosion and resulting fire killed 50 people and injured many others. The Venezuelan plaintiffs filed ten other actions in the federal and state courts of California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, and New Jersey. AT & T removed this action from the State Court of Fulton County to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, which denied the plaintiffs' motion to remand and granted AT & T's motion to dismiss based on the doctrine of forum non conveniens.¹ The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed because of the lack of federal jurisdiction.²

On remand, the state court weighed the relevant factors identified in Gulf Oil Corporation v. Gilbert,³ concluding that there was an adequate alternative forum and public and private interests supported dismissing the action in favor of the courts of Venezuela. Despite this conclusion, the state court denied AT & T's motion to dismiss because Georgia does not have a statute giving trial courts the discretion to decline to exercise jurisdiction under the doctrine of forum non conveniens. After the Court of Appeals for the State of Georgia denied AT & T's application for interlocutory appeal, we granted certiorari.

FORUM NON CONVENIENS

The common-law doctrine of forum non conveniens is an equitable principle by which "a court having jurisdiction may decline to exercise it on considerations of convenience, efficiency, and justice."⁴ Under federal case law, a district court has the discretion to dismiss a lawsuit when there is an adequate alternative forum in a foreign court and dismissal best serves the convenience of the parties and the ends of justice.⁵ The U.S. Supreme Court has identified relevant public and private interests to be considered in determining whether the plaintiff's choice of forum should be honored.⁶ The private interests include the relative ease of access to sources of proof, the relative availability of compulsory process to secure the attendance of witnesses, the cost of obtaining willing witnesses, the need to view the premises, the ability to enforce judgments, and other factors that make a trial expeditious and inexpensive.⁷ When courts are required to adjudicate disputes that have little connection to the chosen forum, the public interest factors include issues involving court congestion, jury duty, and choice of law.

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.... There is a local interest in having localized controversies decided at home. There is an appropriateness, too, in having the trial ... 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.⁸

Since the enactment of federal statutes permitting transfers between federal judicial districts, the doctrine applies in federal courts primarily when the alternative forum is a foreign court. ⁹

Even though the common-law doctrine originated in the state courts,¹⁰ the vast majority of states now follow a standard similar to the federal rule.¹¹ These states permit their courts to refuse to exercise jurisdiction when the interests of justice and the convenience of the parties justify dismissal.¹² Most states have relied on their courts' inherent judicial power in adopting the doctrine, although a few states have enacted statutes with a forum non conveniens provision.¹³

ADOPTION OF FORUM NON CONVENIENS UNDER GEORGIA LAW

This Court has the inherent power "to maintain a court system capable of providing for the administration of justice in an orderly and efficient manner."¹⁴ Like our sister states, we exercise our inherent power only when established methods do not address a situation¹⁵ and courts are compelled to provide solutions that enable the litigative process to proceed smoothly.¹⁶

Relying on our inherent judicial power, we adopt the doctrine of forum non conveniens for use in lawsuits brought in our state courts by nonresident aliens who suffer injuries outside this country. First, we think trial courts should have the discretion to determine whether a tort action should remain on their dockets when it involves foreign plaintiffs. Unlike the previous cases where we have declined to apply the doctrine, this case does not involve a resident or citizen of Georgia or another state.¹⁷ Second, adoption of the doctrine permits our state courts to preserve their limited judicial resources to resolve controversies that have a reasonable connection to their jurisdiction. Third, adopting the doctrine places this state in line with both the federal courts and the majority of the states and thus discourages foreign plaintiffs from suing in Georgia courts to litigate their tort claims in an American court.¹⁸ As the U.S. Supreme Court has noted, the courts in our country are attractive to foreign plaintiffs because most states offer strict liability, jury trials are available, discovery is more extensive, contingent attorney's fees are allowed, and losing parties are not taxed the costs of their opponents' attorney's fees.¹⁹

In adopting this doctrine, we reject the plaintiffs' argument that the Georgia statutes concerning the rights of aliens gives Venezuelan citizens an equal right of access to our state courts.²⁰ Neither the United States Constitution nor the Georgia Constitution guarantees the same protections to aliens living outside this country that it gives citizens and aliens living within the borders of the United States.²¹ The Supreme Court has explained that it is the alien's presence within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States that gives the judiciary the power to extend constitutional protections beyond citizens to aliens.²² Given the importance of an alien's presence as a resident within this country to invoke the rights guaranteed to citizens, we conclude that OCGA §§ 1-2-10 and 1-2-11 apply to citizens of foreign countries who are residing within the United States and do not extend to nonresident aliens.

We also conclude that our recent decisions addressing the doctrine of forum non conveniens under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act do not prevent us from exercising our inherent powers here.²³ Unlike the Venezuelan citizens who brought these actions, the parties in those cases had an unqualified right under our constitution or federal statutes to litigate their claims in the courts of this state. ²⁴ Although specific statutes codifying the doctrine will prevail over the common law, the absence of a statute generally permitting dismissal based on forum non conveniens does not prohibit us from adopting the doctrine in this international tort action. Because the trial court found that it lacked the inherent power to dismiss these cases under the doctrine of forum non conveniens, we reverse.

Judgment reversed.

All the Justices concur, except BENHAM and CARLEY, JJ., who dissent.

BENHAM, Justice, dissenting.

Despite this Court's holding in McCorkle v. Judges of Superior Court of Chatham County, 260 Ga. 315, 316, 392 S.E.2d 707 (1990), that "[t]he inherent power is not a sword but a shield," the majority opinion in this case uses that power to pare away the constitutional and statutory jurisdiction of Georgia trial courts and to cut off from access to our courts persons who are entitled by statute to sue and be sued in this State. Because I believe that adoption of the doctrine of forum non conveniens is not a proper subject for the exercise of the inherent power of Georgia courts, I must dissent.

The inherent power of the judiciary is conferred on it by the State, and "must be found in, and derived from the law of the land, and also be exercised in the mode and manner that the law prescribes.' [Cit.]" Grimmett v. Barnwell, 184 Ga. 461(1), 192 S.E. 191 (1937). The "law of the land" from which the judiciary of this State derives its inherent powers is our Constitution, which "invests those officials charged with the duty of administering justice...