Brown v. Clorox Co.

• Decision Date: 17 March 1976
• Parties: Shelby Scott BROWN, a minor, by and through his guardian ad litem, Harry S. Brown, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. CLOROX COMPANY, INC., et al., Defendants and Respondents. Civ. 36105.
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 385

128 Cal.Rptr. 385

56 Cal.App.3d 306

Shelby Scott BROWN, a minor, by and through his guardian ad litem, Harry S. Brown, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. CLOROX COMPANY, INC., et al., Defendants and Respondents.

Civ. 36105.

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 4, California.

March 17, 1976.

Manza, Moceri, Gustafson, Narigi & Messina, Tacoma, Wash., Law Offices of John Wynne Herron, Richard P. Hill, San Francisco, for plaintiff and appellant.

Crosby, Heafey, Roach & May, Peter W. Davis, John A. Reding, Oakland, for Jiffee Chem. Corp. and Clorox Co.

Moore, Rode, Moffitt & Clifford, Cyril Viadro, Oakland, for Lucky Stores.

KEANE, ^* Associate Justice (Assigned).

This is an appeal by plaintiff Shelby Scott Brown, a minor, from an order of the Superior Court of Alameda County staying plaintiff's action in that court pending initiation of proceedings in a more appropriate forum.

Plaintiff filed a complaint against defendants Clorox Company, Inc., Jiffee Chemical Corporation, and Lucky Stores, Inc., in the Superior Court of Alameda County. Plaintiff sought to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by virtue of ingestion of a product manufactured and sold by defendants. Exemplary damages in the sum of two million dollars were also asked for upon the ground that defendants had prior knowledge of the toxicity of the product and its accessibility to children. Defendants appeared specially and moved to dismiss the complaint pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure sections 410.30 and 418.10 on the grounds of Forum non conveniens. Defendants also sought 'an order determining that the law of the State of Washington is applicable to this case.'

Following a hearing, the lower court concluded that '(t)he State of Claifornia and County of Alameda and their courts do not provide a convenient forum for the prosecution of the within matter' and ordered that plaintiff's action be stayed pending the initiation of proceedings in a more appropriate forum. The order further provided that plaintiff's action 'will be dismissed on ex parte application on proof being given to the satisfaction of the court that a general appearance has been made by all defendants . . . in the proceeding hereafter to be brought in such appropriate forum.'

The order was made conditional upon defendants' acceptance of service of process in the appropriate forum and waiver of any right to attorneys' fees. ¹

Plaintiff Shelby Scott Brown resides with his parents Harry and Meridel Brown in Tacoma, Washington. On November 23, 1970, plaintiff, who was then two years of age, opened and drank part of the contents of a bottle of Liquid-plumr, a drain cleaner, which his mother had placed on a kitchen counter. It is alleged that the child suffered severe internal injuries requiring extensive medical treatment and resulting in permanent disability and disfigurement. The drain cleaner had been purchased a few days earlier by Mrs. Brown at a Lucky Store in Tacoma.

The Liquid-plumr product was manufactured by defendant Jiffee Chemical Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of defendant Clorox Company, Inc. ² At the time of the accident, Clorox was an Ohio corporation, but it has since been incorporated under the laws of California with its principal place of business in Oakland, California. Jiffee is an Indiana corporation, with its principal office in Indianapolis. Both companies were apparently doing business in the State of Washington at the time of the incident. ³ Defendant Lucky Stores, Inc., is a California corporation with its principal place of business in the County of Alameda. It was also doing business in Washington at the time of the accident.

On March 22, 1974, plaintiff filed his complaint in the Superior Court of Alameda County, seeking to recover damages on negligence, breach of warranty and strict liability theories. In granting defendants' motion pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 410.30 and ordering that plaintiff's action be stayed pending initiation of proceedings in a more appropriate forum the trial court said: 'The State of California and County of Alameda and their courts do not provide a convenient forum for the prosecution of the within matter and the State of Washington does provide a suitable and convenient forum therefor, for the reasons, among others, of relative convenience to witnesses, disadvantage to litigants, the unreasonable and possibly unsupportable burden on the courts if the place of manufacture were to be accepted as the appropriate forum in actions involving mass produced products widely distributed over major portions of the country, the relative interest of the states in providing a forum and the interest of the state in regulating the conduct involved, the relative ease of access of proof, the availability of compulsory process for the attendance of witnesses and the fact that the two forums are otherwise equally available.'

The doctrine of the inconvenient forum is basically 'an equitable one embracing the discretionary power of a court to decline to exercise the jurisdiction it has over a transitory cause of action when it believes that the action before it may be more appropriately and justly tried elsewhere.' (Leet v. Union Pac. R.R. Co., 25 Cal.2d 605, 609, 155 P.2d 42, 44; Hadler v. Western Greyhound Racing Circuit, 34 Cal.App.3d 1, 5, 109 Cal.Rptr. 502; see also Gulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert, 330 U.S. 501, 507, 67 S.Ct. 839, 842, 91 L.Ed. 1055, wherein the Supreme Court declared that '(t)he principle of Forum non conveniens is simply that a court may resist imposition upon its jurisdiction even when jurisdiction is authorized by the letter of a general venue statute.') The doctrine was judicially accepted in California in 1954 (Price v. Atchison, T. & S.F. Ry. Co., 42 Cal.2d 577, 583--584, 268 P.2d 457), and was recently given statutory recognition by the enactment of section 410.30 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which provides in pertinent part as follows: '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.'

It is now established in this state that a trial court has no discretion to dismiss an action upon the ground of Forum non conveniens where the plaintiff is a resident of this state. (Archibald v. Cinerama Hotels,15 Cal.3d 853, 126 Cal.Rptr. 811, 544 P.2d 947.) 'This limitation of the Forum non conveniens doctrine does not rest on any conclusion derived from a balancing of conveniences; it reflects an overriding state policy of assuring California residents an adequate forum for the redress of grievances. (Citations omitted.)' (Id., at p. 859, 126 Cal.Rptr. at 815, 544 P.2d at 951.)

The case at bench, however, involves a stay rather than a dismissal, and a non-resident plaintiff and resident defendants. Therefore, the policy consideration enunciated by the Supreme Court in Archibald is not applicable here. The issue in the instant case is whether the trial court abused its discretion in staying plaintiff's action, that is, whether substantial evidence was presented to support the trial court's order. ⁴

In addition to residence of the parties, various factors have been deemed significant in determining whether the trial court should exercise its discretion to decline jurisdiction. (See Great Northern Ry. Co. v. Superior Court, 12 Cal.App.3d 105, 112--115, 90 Cal.Rptr. 461; Judicial Council Comment to Code of Civil Procedure, § 410.30.) The trial court should weigh and balance all relevant factors in determining which forum is the more convenient. (Archibald v. Cinerama Hotels, supra, 15 Cal.3d 853, at p. 860, 126 Cal.Rptr. 811, 544 P.2d 947.)

It is recognized that a plaintiff's choice of forum should not be disturbed except for weighty reasons, that in the ordinary case there is more than one forum available to a plaintiff all of which are appropriate, and that one of such appropriate forums in the case of a corporate defendant is the state of its incorporation or principal place of business. (Judicial Council Comment to Code Civ.Proc., § 410.30, and cases cited therein.) Here, it was established that all three respondents had nad have their principal place of business in Alameda County, that Clorox and Lucky are California corporations, and that Jiffee is a wholly owned 'paper' subsidiary of Clorox.

We commence, then, with the proposition that plaintiff's choice of forum should not be disturbed. However, respondents assert that their showing in the court below was sufficient to establish 'weighty reasons' for the disturbance of plaintiff's choice of forum.

As respondents note, it has been held that the mere fact of a defendant's incorporation in the forum state, in itself, does not give that state any real connection with the controversy so as to require that court to retain jurisdiction. However, the cases so holding carefully point...