Archibald v. Cinerama Hotels
| Decision Date | 26 November 1974 |
| Citation | 43 Cal.App.3d 511,117 Cal.Rptr. 843 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Marybelle ARCHIBALD, on behalf of herself and others similarly situated, Appellant, v. CINERAMA HOTELS et al., Respondents. Civ. 14012. |
Munger, Tolles, Hills & Rickerhauser, Carla A. Hills, Los Angeles, for Sheraton Hotel & Motor Inns.
Lopez, Kennedy & Srite, Jack Halpin, Redding, for Waikiki Hotels-Seven.
Carlsmith, Carlsmith, Wickman & Case, Honolulu, Hawaii, and Lopez, Kennedy & Srite, Jack Halpin, Redding, for Island Holidays, Ltd., and Inter Island Resorts.
Swerdlow, Glickbarg & Shimer, Beverly Hills, for Cinerama Hotels.
Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher, Irwin F. Woodland and Wayne W. Smith, Los Angeles, for Hilton Hotels.
Diepenbrock, Wulff, Plant & Hannegan, Sacramento, for Holiday Inns.
Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, San Francisco, for Western International Hotels.
McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enerson, San Francisco, for American Express Co.
Argue, Freston & Myers, John C. Argue, Edwin Freston, Los Angeles, for TraveLodge International.
John E. Ryan, Friedman, Collard & Kauffman, Lally & Mills, Sacramento, for appellant.
Marybelle Archibald, the plaintiff, appeals from an order of the Sacramento superior court which dismissed her class suit under the rule of forum non conveniens embodied in Code of Civil Procedure section 410.30, subdivision (a). That statute declares: 'When a court upon motion of a party or its own motion finds that in the interest of substantial justice an action should be heard in a forum outside this state, the court shall stay or dismiss the action in whole or in part on any conditions that may be just.'
Ms. Archibald, a California resident, sues on behalf of herself and other California residents who visit the state of Hawaii. She alleges that Hawaiian hotels have, by agreement, established a discriminatory rate structure which imposes on mainland visitors and tourists a higher room rental than the rate (called kamaaina rate) charged to residents of Hawaii. Named as defendants are a group of firms which own or keep more than 40 hotels and motels in Hawaii. An additional defendant is American Express Company, whose hotel reservation facilities are used by plaintiffs and many others of her class. Plaintiff alleges that she was the subject of the alleged price discrimination on visits to Hawaii in 1971 and 1972; that the same price discrimination is practiced against the other members of the class, that is, California residents who travel to Hawaii and stay at Hawaiian hotels.
All the named defendants joined in moving to dismiss the action on the ground of forum non conveniens. One defendant, Waikiki Hotels-Seven, also moved to quash service of summons on the ground that its contacts within California were insufficient to vest the California courts with jurisdiction over it. The trial court granted both motions. Through a minute order and a signed formal order, the court found that in the interests of substantial justice the action could be more conveniently tried in the Hawaiian courts.
Code of Civil Procedure section 410.30 is a statutory expression of the judicially established doctrine of forum non conveniens, which authorizes a court in its discretion to decline the exercise of jurisdiction when the action may more appropriately and justly tried elsewhere. (Leet v. Union Pacific R.R. Co., 25 Cal.2d 605, 609, 155 P.2d 42.) The doctrine is typically applied to litigation where all the parties are nonresidents and the claim arose outside the forum state. It has only 'an extremely limited application' where, as here, the plaintiff is a California resident. (Thomsos v. Continental Ins. Co., 66 Cal.2d 738, 742, 59 Cal.Rptr. 101, 427 P.2d 765; Hadler v. Western Greyhound Racing Circuit, 34 Cal.App.3d 1, 5, 109 Cal.Rptr. 502.) 'A determination that a plaintiff is domiciled here [in California] would ordinarily preclude granting the defendant's motion for dismissal on the ground of forum non conveniens.' (Goodwine v. Superior Court, 63 Cal.2d 481, 485, 47 Cal.Rptr. 201, 204, 407 P.2d 1, 4.)
The preference given to resident plaintiffs is not a parochial California manifestation; rather, it is one aspect of the doctrine as evolved in American decisional law. The rule reflects a policy of the forum state to provide its own residents redress in the courts maintained for their benefit; in some jurisdictions the forum non conveniens rule is simply unavailable to a defendant sued by a resident plaintiff; in others, the plaintiff's local residence weighs the balance of convenience in his favor; California law creates a reasonable presumption in favor of the resident plaintiff; the California court will be the appropriate forum except in unusual circumstances. (Thomson v. Continental Ins. Co., supra, 66 Cal.2d at pp. 742-745, 59 Cal.Rptr. 101, 427 P.2d 765; Hadler v. Western Greyhound Racing Circuit, supra, 34 Cal.App.3d at pp. 5-6, 109 Cal.Rptr. 502.) In the ordinary situation a nonresident business firm which draws profit from activity in the forum state has little basis for a complaint of inconvenience when required to defend itself in that state. (Buckeye Boiler Co. v. Superior Court, 71 Cal.2d 893, 900, 80 Cal.Rptr. 113, 458 P.2d 57.)
When a forum non conveniens motion is granted, section 410.30 gives the trial court the alternative of dismissal or stay. Here the trial court chose the former. The relative unavailability of a dismissal as contrasted with a stay was described in Thomson, supra, 66 Cal.2d at pages 744-747, 59 Cal.Rptr. 101, 427 P.2d 765, More recently, the State Supreme Court has declared that a court may stay but may not dismiss an action for forum non conveniens if a party is a California resident. (Ferreira v. Ferreira, 9 Cal.3d 824, 838, 109 Cal.Rptr. 80, 512 P.2d 304.)
The judgment of dismissal must be reversed, because the California plaintiff was vulnerable at most to a stay. Nevertheless, we go farther and consider the propriety of defendants' motion on its merits.
Initially, we seek out the boundaries of judicial review. Authoritative decisions view forum non conveniens as the discretionary power of a court to decline jurisdiction when it believes that trial in another forum is more appropriate and just. (Gulf Oil Co. v. Gilbert, 330 U.S. 501, 507, 67 S.Ct. 839, 91 L.Ed. 1055; Koster v. Lumbermens Mutual Cas. Co., 330 U.S. 518, 528, 67 S.Ct. 828, 91 L.Ed. 1067; Price v. Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co., 42 Cal.2d 577, 580, 268 P.2d 457; Leet v. Union Pacific R.R. Co., supra, 25 Cal.2d at p. 609, 155 P.2d 42.) From this premise a number of courts have drawn the deduction--erroneous in our view--that discretion belongs to the trial court alone; that the appellate court is relegated to a relatively narrow, abuse-of-discretion review.
Defendants, understandably, rely heavily on this notion. They point to the stereotype that "discretion is abused whenever . . . the court exceeds the bounds of reason, all of the circumstances before it being considered." (See, e. g., State Farm etc. Ins. Co. v. Superior Court, 47 Cal.2d 428, 432, 304 P.2d 13, 15.) In effect, defendants argue that we must not substitute our own judgment for that of the trial court; rather, that we may only inquire whether the trial court's action 'exceeded the bounds of reason.'
In referring to discretionary power over the convenient forum disposition, the authoritative decisions of the federal and California supreme courts speak generally of judicial discretion; do not assign differing allotments of discretion to the various levels of the judicial hierarchy; do not vest trial courts with broader discretion than appellate courts; do not relegate the latter to the limited, abuse-of-discretion variety of review. 1
Judicial discretion (not to speak of administrative discretion) embraces an enormous array and endless variety of decisions. (See generally, Davis, Discretionary Justice, A Preliminary Inquiry (1969).) The cliche permitting appellate interference only when the action 'exceeds the bounds of reason' should not be applied across the board. The board is far too broad. The rule is salutary when the original tribunal is in a better position to make the inquiry; it falters when both tribunals have equal access to the guiding factors. To allocate power between trial and appellate courts because the former act first is unalloyed superstition. Allocations of power within the judicial hierarchy depend upon factors other than the sequence in which they act.
The assumption is groundless that breadth of discretion inevitably diminishes as the case passes from original to reviewing tribunals. The relative capabilities of the original and reviewing agencies vary with the character of the decision--whether a question of fact, one of law, one of 'mixed' law and fact, a judgmental question or one of policy. (See Weiner, The Civil Nonjury Trial and the Law-Fact Dichotomy, 55 Cal.L.Rev. 1020.) Some discretionary decisions are relatively free of law-imposed standards; others are hedged by mandatory, substantive rules. When discretion is circumscribed by rule and the facts are fixed, an appellate court is better equipped than a trial court, because it has the benefit of collegial discussion, more deliberation more time for research, and (often) better briefing. In any event, the limited, abuse-of-discretion variety of review may not be invoked to insulate errors of law from appellate interference.
We reject the forum non conveniens decisions which confine appellate review to abuse of trial court discretion. When, as here, a one-judge...
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