Quandt v. Beech Aircraft Corporation

• Decision Date: 07 October 1970
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 3710.
• Citation: 317 F. Supp. 1009
• Parties: Ingeborg QUANDT et al., Plaintiffs, v. BEECH AIRCRAFT CORPORATION, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Delaware

317 F. Supp. 1009

Ingeborg QUANDT et al., Plaintiffs, v. BEECH AIRCRAFT CORPORATION, Defendant.

Civ. A. No. 3710.

United States District Court, D. Delaware.

October 7, 1970.

C. Waggaman Berl, Jr., of Booker, Leshem, Green, Shaffer & Berl, Wilmington, Del., and Henry S. Conston, of Walter & Conston, New York City, of counsel, for plaintiffs.

E. N. Carpenter, II, and Robert H. Richards, III, of Richards, Layton & Finger, Wilmington, Del., for defendant.

OPINION

LATCHUM, District Judge.

This is a products liability suit which stems from the crash of an aircraft designed and manufactured by the defendants.¹ The crash occurred on September 22, 1967 in the vicinity of Sanfront Conba Gambasca, Italy while the plane was on a flight from Frankfurt Am Main, Germany to Nice, France. Harald Quandt, a passenger of the plane, was killed as a result of the crash.

Plaintiffs, all citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany, are suing individually as heirs and beneficiaries under the will of Harald Quandt and as executors of his estate to recover damages for loss of support and other damages. The defendant, Beech Aircraft Corporation, is incorporated in Delaware. The amount in controversy exceeds $10,000 exclusive of interest and costs. Jurisdiction exists by virtue of 28 U.S.C. § 1332.

Count 1 of the complaint alleges that the plane crash was caused by the defendant's negligence in designing, manufacturing and assembling the aircraft and in failing to give proper and adequate instructions for use by its operators. Count 2 of the complaint alleges that the defendant breached its warranty that the aircraft was airworthy, of merchantable quality and fit for the purposes for which it was designed, manufactured, assembled and sold. The defendant has denied all the material allegations of the complaint.

Defendant has moved to transfer the case to the United States District Court for the District of Kansas pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a).

A civil action may be transferred under § 1404(a) to another district "where it might have been brought" if the Court in its discretion finds the transfer to be "for the convenience of parties and witnesses, and in the interest of justice." This action could have been brought in the District Court of Kansas and tried by that court sitting in Wichita,² venue being proper under 28 U.S.C. § 1391(c) since there is no dispute that the defendant's principal place of business is located in Wichita, Kansas.

Having found that there is power to transfer, the question becomes whether there has been a sufficient showing, in the light of the three statutory criteria, to cause this Court to move this litigation to Kansas. Jahncke Service, Inc. v. OKC Corp., 301 F.Supp. 866 (D.Del. 1969).

Convenience of Parties. The plaintiffs are all citizens and residents of West Germany. While the defendant is a Delaware corporation, it maintains only a statutory office here. Its principal office and all of its major plants, including the one where the plane was designed and manufactured, are located in Kansas.³ Obviously, whether the case is tried in Delaware or Kansas, the plaintiffs will have extensive travel. As to their convenience there is little difference between the two possible fora. A trial, however, in Kansas would eliminate all of defendant's travel at little added inconvenience to the plaintiffs.⁴ Further, it appears that the same German plaintiffs as here are actively pressing at this time another suit in the United States District Court for Kansas against a different Kansas based aircraft manufacturer concerning an earlier unrelated airplane crash which occurred in Europe involving Harald Quandt.⁵ Plaintiffs say this latter suit could not have been brought in Delaware because it was barred by the Delaware statute of limitations. Regardless of the reasons why that suit was brought in Kansas, it is a fact that the same plaintiffs are already litigating in that district. Viewing the totality of convenience to both parties, it appears that Wilmington is convenient to neither party.

Wichita is about as convenient to plaintiffs as Wilmington and it is of complete convenience to the defendant. This balance cannot but favor transfer. General Electric Co. v. Westinghouse Electric Corp., 294 F.Supp. 36 (D.Del. 1968); Paragon-Revolute Corp. v. C. F. Pease Co., 120 F.Supp. 488 (D.Del. 1954). While plaintiffs' choice of forum is entitled to some consideration, it is not determinative in view of the over-all balance of convenience to the parties, especially when the forum chosen is only the statutory home state of the defendant corporation. Glickenhaus v. Lytton Financial Corp., 205 F.Supp. 102 (D. Del.1962).

Convenience of Witnesses. The plaintiffs contend that one or more German witnesses will be required to testify as well as certain undesignated witnesses from Italy where the crash occurred and was investigated. In addition, plaintiffs claim they will call one or more witnesses from Lawrence, Massachusetts, employees of Alco Electronic Products, Inc., the manufacturer of the avionics master power switch, whose failure is believed to have been a contributing cause of the accident, and an aeronautical engineering expert from Huntington, New York. On the other hand, the defendant contends that in order to defend this case, it will have to produce numerous witnesses and substantial documentary material from its headquarters and main plant in Wichita where the plane was designed, built and sold. More specifically, defendant has listed six witnesses, residents of Kansas, whose testimony is vital to the charges of negligence and breach of warranty.

Plaintiffs attempt to counter this showing by referring to defendant's sales and service subsidiaries in Texas, Colorado, California and Switzerland as indicative of defendant's national and international scope of operations. The plaintiffs insist that the defendant must regularly transport its employees to these places in its own planes and thus can...