Louis.Īccording to the Court of Appeals, 18 months was just too long to wait to file a motion to dismiss based on forum non conveniens, because all of the factors supporting dismissal were available to the defendants much earlier on in the case. However, the Court of Appeals held that the District Court abused its discretion and reinstated the case in St. At first blush, the District Court’s ruling appeared completely reasonable. On these grounds, and others, the District Court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss for forum non conveniens. Documents and testimony would have to be translated from Arabic. Jordanian law would govern the wrongful death claims and the standard of care.

Other potential defendants to implead were located in Jordan and not subject to personal jurisdiction in Missouri. Plaintiffs’ attorneys were located in Michigan. Yet, the Plaintiffs, several of the Defendants, and most of the witnesses were located in Jordan. The case was filed in the Eastern District of Missouri, the restaurant holding company’s home. The Hersh case involved a little boy who was playing in a restaurant playground in Amman, Jordan, and was tragically electrocuted by an exposed wire. The overriding goal is to ensure that the forum is convenient. Then the court weights private-interest factors (e.g., location of the parties, attorneys, evidence, and witnesses) and public-interest factors (e.g., choice of law issues, court resources, and strains on the jury pool) to determine whether dismissal is appropriate. This is essentially any forum in which the defendant can be served.

To dismiss on forum non conveniens grounds, the movant must establish that an adequate alternative forum exists. The Court of Appeals found that the District Court abused its discretion in granting a motion to dismiss on forum non conveniens grounds. It held that those seeking to dismiss on forum non conveniens grounds must show that it is actually inconvenient to litigate in the current forum and such a showing should be made at a reasonably early time, lest defendants inadvertently undermine the purported “inconvenience” of litigating in the forum. The Court of Appeals attempted to answer that question in Hersh v. If there is no set deadline for when the motion to dismiss must be filed, how can such a motion ever be untimely? But forum non conveniens is mentioned neither in Rule 12 nor anywhere else in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and courts have often held that such motions can be filed at any time, even on the day of trial. Practitioners in the Eastern District of Missouri are no doubt well-versed on these concerns.ĭefendants can obtain dismissal of a lawsuit filed in an inconvenient forum. Courts are also concerned that attractive districts will face the undue financial burden of supporting litigation of claims of no significant interest to the district. The doctrine of f orum non conveniens arose out of due process concerns that defendants from across the country (or indeed the world) can be hauled into federal court in far-flung jurisdictions having no significant connection to the case. The Court of Appeals held that the Defendants undermined their own inconvenience arguments by litigating in the forum for 18 months before filing their motion. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals recently reversed a District Court’s dismissal on forum non conveniens grounds, finding that the motion to dismiss was untimely. ABSTRACT: The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a case dismissed on forum non conveniens grounds, where the defendants scuttled their own inconvenience arguments by waiting 18 months to file their motion.

Motion to dismiss appeal missouri