Premier Cruise Lines, Ltd., Inc. v. Gavrilis
| Decision Date | 02 January 1990 |
| Docket Number | No. 89-1673,89-1673 |
| Citation | 554 So.2d 659 |
| Parties | 15 Fla. L. Weekly D118 PREMIER CRUISE LINES, LTD., INC., Appellant, v. Emmanuel GAVRILIS, et al., Appellees. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Lau, Lanle, Pieper, Asti, Conley & McCreadie, and David McCreadie, Tampa, for appellant.
Preddy, Kutner, Hardy, Rubinoff, Brown & Thompson and G. William Bissett, Miami, T.G. Anagnost, Coral Gables, for appellees.
Before BARKDULL, NESBITT and LEVY, JJ.
A cruise line being sued by an injured employee for an accident occurring on the high seas appeals the denial of its motion for change of venue. We affirm on the following analysis.
Mr. Gavrilis, an employee of Premier Cruise Lines (PCL), was injured while on board the S/S Oceanic. He alleges he was injured because of PCL's negligence and because that vessel was unseaworthy. Mrs. Gavrilis seeks to recover for loss of consortium. The Gavrilises are Greek citizens with their residence in Greece. The accident occurred near Nassau, the Bahamas. Mr. Gavrilis was treated at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Dade County for two months. He stayed at a Miami hotel while receiving physical therapy and then returned to his home in Greece to convalesce. The Gavrilises filed their complaint in Dade County. PCL denied that the acts set out in the complaint occurred in Dade and filed a motion to transfer the action to the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit. In support of its motion, PCL filed the affidavit of its operations manager who stated that PCL is a foreign corporation with its sole Florida office in Brevard County and that the company has no agent or representative located in Dade.
Responding to the motion to transfer, the Gavrilises filed the affidavit of their attorney, discussing Mr. Gavrilis's lengthy medical treatment in Miami, and the affidavits of two travel agents who stated that they conducted business for PCL in Dade. Also, they submitted the affidavit of a customer who had called the PCL toll-free number and inquired as to whether the company had any agents or representatives in Dade County and was told that travel agents in Dade worked for PCL at no charge to the customer as agents and representatives of the company. The trial court granted PCL's motion to transfer. The Gavrilises moved for rehearing. PCL then submitted the affidavit of PCL's director of sales and development. He stated that local travel agents are not agents or representatives of PCL but merely act to distribute literature and help secure passage. Upon reconsidering all the affidavits, the court ordered the cause to remain pending in Dade.
While the primary purpose of venue statutes is to require litigation to be instituted in the forum which will cause the least amount of inconvenience and expense to those parties required to answer and defend the action, Gaboury v. Flagler Hospital, Inc., 316 So.2d 642 (Fla. 4th DCA 1975); it is the prerogative of the plaintiff to select the venue and as long as that selection is one of the alternatives provided by statute, the plaintiff's selection will not be disturbed. Houchins v. Florida East Coast Ry., 388 So.2d 1287 (Fla. 3d DCA 1980); Perry Bldg. Syss., Inc. v. Hayes & Bates, Inc., 361 So.2d 443 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978).
Section 47.051, Florida Statutes (1987), states:
Actions against foreign corporations doing business in this state shall be brought in a county where such corporation has an agent or other representative, where the cause of action accrued or where the property in litigation is located.
The Gavrilises claim that the trial court had sufficient admissible evidence to conclude that, for venue...
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