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Forum Non Conveniens—Convenience Or Conniving? Paulownia Plantations De Panama Corp William Mitchell Law Review Volume 38 | Issue 1 Article 5 2011 Civil Procedure: Forum Non Conveniens—Convenience or Conniving? Paulownia Plantations De Panama Corp. V. Rajamannan Carrie L. Weber Follow this and additional works at: http://open.mitchellhamline.edu/wmlr Recommended Citation Weber, Carrie L. (2011) "Civil Procedure: Forum Non Conveniens—Convenience or Conniving? Paulownia Plantations De Panama Corp. V. Rajamannan," William Mitchell Law Review: Vol. 38: Iss. 1, Article 5. Available at: http://open.mitchellhamline.edu/wmlr/vol38/iss1/5 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews and Journals at Mitchell Hamline Open Access. It has been accepted for inclusion in William Mitchell Law Review by an authorized administrator of Mitchell Hamline Open Access. For more information, please contact [email protected]. © Mitchell Hamline School of Law Weber: Civil Procedure: Forum Non Conveniens—Convenience or Conniving? P CIVIL PROCEDURE: FORUM NON CONVENIENS— CONVENIENCE OR CONNIVING?PAULOWNIA PLANTATIONS DE PANAMA CORP. V. RAJAMANNAN † Carrie L. Weber I. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................... 434 II. HISTORY ................................................................................. 436 A. From Scotland to America .................................................. 436 B. Roots of the Current Common Law Analysis ....................... 438 C. Forum Non Conveniens and Latin America ....................... 439 D. The Evolution of Forum Non Conveniens in Minnesota ...... 440 III. CASE DESCRIPTION ................................................................ 442 A. Factual Background .......................................................... 442 B. Lower Court Decisions ....................................................... 443 C. Minnesota Supreme Court Decision............................ 444 IV. ANALYSIS ................................................................................ 445 A. The Availability and Adequacy of a Panamanian Forum .... 445 B. The Plaintiff’s Legally Valid Forum Selection ...................... 449 C. Weighing the Public and Private Factors ............................. 450 1. Public Factors .............................................................. 450 2. Private Factors ............................................................. 453 3. Conclusion .................................................................. 455 D. Post-Dismissal Realities ..................................................... 456 E. Intervention from Congress?............................................... 456 V. CONCLUSION ......................................................................... 459 † J.D. Candidate, William Mitchell College of Law, 2013; B.A., Elementary Education, magna cum laude, Iowa State University, 2007. 433 Published by Mitchell Hamline Open Access, 2011 1 William Mitchell Law Review, Vol. 38, Iss. 1 [2011], Art. 5 434 WILLIAM MITCHELL LAW REVIEW [Vol. 38:1 “Forum non conveniens is a doctrine in crisis.”1 I. INTRODUCTION Litigation involving foreign parties has expanded with the global economy, and with it has come heightened use of the forum non conveniens doctrine.2 The purpose of the doctrine is to ensure that disputes are resolved in the most convenient forum, and that defendants are not unduly vexed by being sued in inconvenient settings.3 The doctrine gives defendants the right to move for dismissal on the grounds that another forum would be more appropriate to resolve their dispute.4 As use of the doctrine has expanded, so has confusion over its application, leading to a complicated trail of decisions across the United States, and ample amounts of commentary on the doctrine, much of it negative.5 While some commentators believe the doctrine is an essential tool, clearing the clutter of American courtrooms, others see it as a violation of international comity, or a defense tactic allowing U.S. corporations to avoid liability for their actions.6 Forum non conveniens has been labeled a “connivance to avoid corporate accountability”7 and called everything from “a crazy quilt”8 to 1. Elizabeth T. Lear, Congress, the Federal Courts, and Forum Non Conveniens: Friction on the Frontier of the Inherent Power, 91 IOWA L. REV. 1147, 1158 (2006). 2. See Leah Nico, Note & Comment, From Local to Global: Reform of Forum Non Conveniens Needed to Ensure Justice in the Era of Globalization, 11 SW. J.L. & TRADE AM. 345, 357–61 (2005). But see Christopher A. Whytock, The Evolving Forum Shopping System, 96 CORNELL L. REV. 481, 483–84 (2011) (suggesting the belief that the United States is experiencing an “explosion” of transnational litigation is not supported by empirical data). 3. See Gulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert, 330 U.S. 501, 508 (1947). “Convenience is at the heart of the inquiry.” Command-Aire Corp. v. Ont. Mech. Sales & Serv. Inc., 963 F.2d 90, 95 (5th Cir. 1992). 4. See 21 C.J.S. Courts § 94 (2011). 5. See, e.g., Lear, supra note 1, at 1152; Rajeev Muttreja, How to Fix the Inconsistent Application of Forum Non Conveniens to Latin American Jurisdiction—and Why Consistency May Not Be Enough, 83 N.Y.U. L. REV. 1607, 1624–30 (2008); Allan R. Stein, Forum Non Conveniens and the Redundancy of Court-Access Doctrine, 133 U. PA. L. REV. 781, 781–83 (1985); Whytock, supra note 2, at 484–85; Nico, supra note 2, at 344–46. 6. Whytock, supra note 2, at 484–85; see also Dow Chem. Co. v. Castro Alfaro, 786 S.W.2d 674, 687 (Tex. 1990) (“Comity—deference shown to the interests of the foreign forum—is a consideration best achieved by rejecting forum non conveniens.”). The use of forum non conveniens has offset the effects of permissive personal jurisdiction, but the doctrine discriminates against foreign plaintiffs and raises questions about “compliance with equal-access provisions in bilateral friendship, commerce, and navigation treaties.” Whytock, supra note 2, at 485, 526–27. 7. Dow Chem. Co., 786 S.W.2d at 680 (Doggett, J., concurring) (“The refusal http://open.mitchellhamline.edu/wmlr/vol38/iss1/5 2 Weber: Civil Procedure: Forum Non Conveniens—Convenience or Conniving? P 2011] FORUM NON CONVENIENS 435 “unconstitutional”9 to a “final bastion to new sources of easy money [for foreign plaintiffs].”10 The only thing most commentators seem to clearly agree on is that nothing about the doctrine is clear. Both state and federal courts continue to analyze the standards haphazardly,11 attempting to balance justice with the growing presence of foreign plaintiffs in U.S. courts. Some foreign plaintiffs may be looking for “easy money,”12 while others have truly meritorious claims against American citizens and corporations. The Minnesota Supreme Court most recently analyzed the doctrine in Paulownia Plantations De Panama Corp. v. Rajamannan, in which an Australian investment group sued a Minnesota resident and his corporations for breach of contract.13 The contracts in question revolved around an investment agreement involving a tree plantation in Panama.14 The defendants moved to dismiss the case on the grounds of forum non conveniens, asserting that the case would be more properly decided in Panama.15 Despite the fact that over two years of discovery had been completed, the motion was granted.16 By dismissing the case, the court sent a message to potential foreign plaintiffs that their choice of forum will be given little deference, and that local defendants will not need to answer to foreign parties in their home court. This note outlines the far-reaching history of the forum non conveniens doctrine, touching on Latin America’s aversion to the law, and then discusses the current haphazard state of the doctrine.17 Next, it presents the relevant procedural history of of a Texas corporation to confront a Texas judge and jury is to be labelled ‘inconvenient’ when what is really involved is not convenience but connivance to avoid corporate accountability.”). 8. Stein, supra note 5, at 785 (“[F]orum non conveniens decisions tend to be a mechanical litany of the seminal Supreme Court language followed by a summary conclusion. The result has been a crazy quilt of ad hoc, capricious, and inconsistent decisions.”). 9. Lear, supra note 1, at 1152, 1159. 10. Michael Wallace Gordon, Forum Non Conveniens Misconstrued: A Response to Henry Saint Dahl, 38 U. MIAMI INTER-AM. L. REV. 141, 146 (2006). 11. For articles noting significant circuit splits and inconsistent application of the doctrine, see Martin Davies, Time to Change the Federal Forum Non Conveniens Analysis, 77 TUL. L. REV. 309, 358–59 (2002) and Joel H. Samuels, When Is an Alternative Forum Available? Rethinking the Forum Non Conveniens Analysis, 85 IND. L.J. 1059, 1077–78 (2010). 12. See Gordon, supra note 10, at 146. 13. 793 N.W.2d 128, 130–31 (Minn. 2009). 14. Id. 15. Id. at 131. 16. Id. at 131, 133. 17. See infra Part II. Published by Mitchell Hamline Open Access, 2011 3 William Mitchell Law Review, Vol. 38, Iss. 1 [2011], Art. 5 436 WILLIAM MITCHELL LAW REVIEW [Vol. 38:1 Paulownia and examines the Minnesota Supreme Court’s decision,18 followed by an analysis of its reasoning.19 The note reasons that the forum non conveniens doctrine has not expanded with changing global realities and that congressional intervention may be welcome to remedy confusion and inconsistency in the law’s application.20 Finally, this note concludes that the court’s decision in Paulownia unfairly prejudiced the foreign plaintiff by giving too little deference to its choice of forum, and turned a blind
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