Norwood v. Kirkpatrick

• Decision Date: 11 April 1955
• Docket Number: No. 337,337
• Citation: 349 U.S. 29,75 S.Ct. 544,99 L.Ed. 789
• Parties: Alexander NORWOOD, Joseph F. Tunstall, and John E. Smallwood, Petitioners, v. Honorable William H. KIRKPATRICK, etc
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

349 U.S. 29

75 S.Ct. 544

99 L.Ed. 789

Alexander NORWOOD, Joseph F. Tunstall, and John E. Smallwood, Petitioners,

v Honorable William H. KIRKPATRICK, etc.

No. 337.

Argued March 4, 1955.

Decided April 11, 1955.

Mr. Joseph S. Lord, III, Philadelphia, Pa., for petitioners.

Mr. H. Francis De Lone, Philadelphia, Pa., for respondent.

Mr. Justice MINTON delivered the opinion of the Court.

The three petitioners, dining car employees, filed separate suits in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, against the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Co. They sued under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 51 et seq., for injuries received upon the derailment of one of defendant's trains near Dillon, South Carolina. The defendant filed motions to dismiss or, in the alternative, to transfer the cases to the Florence Division of the Eastern District of South Carolina. The District Court denied the motions to dismiss and granted the motions to transfer under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), 28 U.S.C.A. § 1404(a).^*

Since the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit had held, in All States Freight v. Modarelli, 196 F.2d 1010, that the order for transfer was not appealable, the petitioners filed applications for mandamus or prohibition to the district judge in order to require him to set aside his orders of transfer. The Court of Appeals denied the applications, and we granted certiorari. 348 U.S. 870, 75 S.Ct. 107.

The cases of the three petitioners present identical questions of law, were consolidated for argument here, and will be disposed of in this opinion.

The district judge in granting the motions to transfer stated that if he had been free to construe § 1404(a) as he did in the case of Naughton v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 85 F.Supp. 761, he would have denied the transfers because, in his view, it called for an application of the stricter rule of forum non conveniens as recognized in decisions of this Court. See Gulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert, 330 U.S. 501, 67 S.Ct. 839, 91 L.Ed. 1055. But since the Naughton case, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit had held, in All States Freight v. Modarelli, supra, that the district judge had a broader discretion in the application of the statute than under the doctrine of forum non conveniens. The district judge, therefore, followed the rule laid down in the All States Freight case, supra. We think the Court of Appeals correctly rejected the narrower doctrine of forum non conveniens and properly construed the statute. As Judge Goodrich, speaking for the court, appropriately pointed out, 196 F.2d at page 1011:

'The forum non conveniens doctrine is quite different from Section 1404(a). That doctrine involves the dismissal of a case because the forum chosen by the plaintiff is so completely inappropriate and inconvenient that it is better to stop the litigation in the place where brought and let it start all over again somewhere else. It is quite naturally subject to careful limitation for it not only denies the plaintiff the generally accorded privilege of bringing an action where he chooses, but makes it possible for him to lose out completely, through the running of the statute of limitations in the forum finally deemed appropriate. Section 1404(a) avoids this latter danger. Its words should be considered for what they say, not with preconceived limitations derived from the forum non conveniens doctrine.'

Judge Maris, who was Chairman of the Judicial Conference Committee on the revision of the Code and approved the text submitted to Congress, sat on the Court of Appeals en banc when All States Freight was decided. And Judge Parker of the Fourth Circuit, consultant to the Advisory Committee, writing for the court in Jiffy Lubricator Co., Inc., v. Stewart-Warner Corp., 177 F.2d 360, 362, also construed the statute as we understand it:

'* * * A dismissal in application of that (forum non conveniens) or any other principle puts an end to the action and hence is final and appealable. An order transferring it to another district does not end but preserves it as against the running of the statute of limitations and for all other purposes. The notion that 28 U.S.C.A. § 1404(a) was a mere codification of existing law relating to forum non conveniens is erroneous. It is perfectly clear that the purpose of this section of the Revised Judicial Code was to grant broadly the power of transfer for the convenience of parties and witnesses, in the interest of justice, whether dismissal under the doctrine of forum non conveniens would have been appropriate or not.'

See also Moore, Commentary on the Judicial Code (1949 ed.), p. 208.

When Congress adopted § 1404(a), it intended to do more than just codify the existing law on forum non conveniens. As this Court said in Ex parte Collett, 337 U.S. 55—61, 69 S.Ct. 944, 947, 93 L.Ed 1207, Congress, in writing § 1404(a), which was an entirely new section, was revising as well as codifying. The harshest result of the application of the old doctrine of forum non conveniens, dismissal of the action, was eliminated by the provision in § 1404(a) for transfer. When the harshest part of the doctrine is excised by statute, it can hardly be called mere codification. As a consequence, we believe that Congress, by the term 'for the convenience of parties and witnesses, in the interest of justice,' intended to permit courts to grant transfers upon a lesser showing of inconvenience. This is not to say that the relevant factors have changed or that the plaintiff's choice of forum is not to be considered, but only that the discretion to be exercised is broader.

It is conceded by the petitioners that if the district judge was correct in exercising his discretion to transfer these cases under § 1404(a) without regard to the stringent requirements of forum non conveniens, then the Court of Appeals properly denied the applications for mandamus and prohibition. Since we agree that the district judge correctly construed the statute in evaluating the evidence, we do not find it necessary to detail the facts considered by him in reaching his judgment. It was correct in law and warranted by the facts.

Since we find that the district judge properly construed § 1404(a), it is unnecessary to pass upon the question of whether mandamus or prohibition is a proper remedy.

The judgment is affirmed.

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice HARLAN took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

Mr. Justice CLARK, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and Mr. Justice DOUGLAS concur, dissenting.

Under this judgment, Alexander Norwood, who lives in Philadelphia where he filed this suit for damages against the railroad, will have to go to South Carolina if he wishes to prosecute it. Joseph Tunstall and John Smallwood, both of whom live in Washington, D.C., will likewise have to go all the way to South Carolina if they hope to recover any damages against the railroad. All three allegedly suffered permanent injuries when a passenger train on which they were employed was derailed. The derailment, with which the plaintiffs had no connection whatever, is sufficient in itself to support a finding of negligence. See Jesionowski v. Boston & Maine R. Co., 329 U.S. 452, 67 S.Ct. 401, 91 L.Ed. 416. Despite these circumstances, the district judge deprived Norwood of a trial in his home town, and Tunstall and Smallwood of one within 150 miles of theirs. This Court's decision, sustaining that result, sends the case to South Carolina, perhaps preventing it from ever being prosecuted because of the financial condition of the plaintiffs.

This is thought justified by an interpretation of § 1404(a) of the 1948 revision of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), 28 U.S.C.A. § 1404(a). It provides:

'For the convenience of parties and witnesses, in the interest of justice, a district court may transfer any civil action to any other district or division where it might have been brought.'

As words on a page torn from the history of our judicial development, this direction is utterly meaningless. How great must be the inconvenience before a judge could feel justified in ordering a transfer? When would it be 'in the interest of justice' to do so? It is not difficult to imagine the baffled reactions of our judiciary were this mandate not accompanied by some explanation, were it not preceded by some experience in dealing with pleas to decline suits because of inconvenience and injustice. Compare the gropings of this Court and the remainder of the federal judiciary when confronted with the blank pages presented by the celebrated § 301 of Taft-Hartley, 29 U.S.C.A. § 185. See Association of Westinghouse Salaried Employees v. Westinghouse Electric Corp., 346 U.S. 437, 75 S.Ct. 488.

But, fortunately, the command of § 1404(a) is accompanied by both history and explanation. The Reviser's Notes state:

'Subsection (a) was drafted in accordance with the doctrine of forum non conveniens, permitting transfer to a more convenient forum, even though the venue is proper. As an example of the need of such a provision, see Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Kepner, 1941, 314 U.S. 44, 62 S.Ct. 6, 86 L.Ed. 28, which was prosecuted under the Federal Employers' Liability Act in New York, although the accident occurred and the employee resided in Ohio. The new subsection requires the court to determine that the transfer is necessary for convenience of the parties and witnesses, and further, that it is in the interest of justice to do so.'

The federal courts, in exercising their discretion under this provision, are thus not set adrift on an uncharted sea, to order transfers according to their personal notions of justice. They are explicitly referred to the body of doctrine in Anglo-American law known as forum non con- veniens, a doctrine which was certainly well developed at the time of the passage of the new Code. Indeed, shortly before the revision was introduced in Congress, this Court handed down two...