Forum Non Conveniens in Maritime Cases: Federal vs. State Court

Where a maritime injury case is heard can matter as much as what the law says. A worker injured offshore often has a choice of courts — and the defense often has a motion designed to take that choice away. The most common such motion is forum non conveniens: a request that the court decline to hear a case it otherwise has the power to decide, on the ground that another forum would be far more appropriate.

This page explains how the doctrine works, how it differs between federal and state court, and how it interacts with a maritime plaintiff's traditional right to choose a forum.

The plaintiff's choice, and the saving-to-suitors backdrop

Maritime plaintiffs have long had options about where to sue. The saving-to-suitors clause preserves a maritime claimant's right to bring most in personam maritime claims in state court, applying federal maritime substantive law. A Jones Act seaman, in particular, can choose state or federal court and — in many situations — resist having the case moved against his wishes. The plaintiff's choice of a proper forum is entitled to substantial deference. Forum non conveniens is the principal tool a defendant uses to overcome that deference.

The federal doctrine: Gilbert and Piper

In federal court, forum non conveniens descends from Gulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert, 330 U.S. 501 (1947), and Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno, 454 U.S. 235 (1981). A court asks first whether an adequate alternative forum is available, then weighs two sets of factors:

• Private-interest factors — access to proof, availability and cost of witnesses, the ability to compel attendance, and the practical problems that make trial easy, expeditious, and inexpensive.
• Public-interest factors — court congestion, the local interest in deciding local controversies, and the burden of applying foreign law.

A few principles shape how those factors come out. A domestic plaintiff's choice of home forum gets strong deference. A foreign plaintiff's choice gets less — Piper held that a foreign plaintiff's forum choice deserves reduced deference, which is one reason cross-border maritime cases see so many forum non conveniens motions. And the mere fact that the substantive law of another country might apply does not, by itself, require dismissal; U.S. courts routinely apply foreign law (see the Jones Act foreign-seaman provision and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 44.1).

Maritime choice-of-law overlays the analysis

In a case with foreign contacts, the forum question travels alongside a choice-of-law question governed by the Supreme Court's maritime factors from Lauritzen v. Larsen and Hellenic Lines Ltd. v. Rhoditis — the place of the wrongful act, the flag of the vessel, the allegiance or domicile of the injured worker, the allegiance of the defendant shipowner, the place of the contract, the inaccessibility of a foreign forum, the law of the forum, and the shipowner's base of operations. A strong showing of U.S. contacts under those factors both supports applying U.S. law and undercuts a forum non conveniens dismissal.

Federal versus state court

The two systems do not run the doctrine identically.

In federal court, a forum non conveniens dismissal is generally available where the more appropriate forum is in another country; where the better forum is another U.S. district, the mechanism is transfer under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a) rather than outright dismissal.

In Texas state court, forum non conveniens is governed by statute — Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 71.051 — which directs the court to weigh a similar set of private- and public-interest factors and, in some circumstances, to dismiss or stay. Texas courts and the federal courts can reach different results on similar facts, and there are important wrinkles for maritime and Jones Act/FELA plaintiffs that affect when a case can be moved at all. Because those interactions are technical and fact-specific, the venue analysis in a cross-border maritime case is one of the first things experienced maritime counsel works through.

Why this matters

Forum disputes are not abstract. The forum often determines the available discovery, whether there is a jury, the procedural rules, and the practical leverage in settlement. The firm's cross-border matters turn on exactly these questions — keeping a case in a U.S. court over a defendant's objection (see our foreign-employer jurisdiction case on personal jurisdiction and the Bermuda forum-maneuver case on a foreign forum-selection clause) and litigating which sovereign's law governs once the case stays (see the cross-border choice-of-law case).

If a defendant is trying to move your maritime case to another court — or to dismiss it so you have to refile somewhere less convenient — the forum non conveniens factors, the saving-to-suitors clause, and the maritime choice-of-law factors all bear on whether that should succeed.

In practice

In practice, a forum-non-conveniens motion is a defendant's bid to send a case to a foreign court where recovery is harder or impossible. It is beatable: the firm defeated a post-litigation maneuver to ship a case to Bermuda through three Texas courts, and kept a foreign employer in a U.S. court under Rule 4(k)(2). The contacts a defendant tries to disclaim are often the very thing that anchors the case here.

Related case studies

• Defeating a Bermuda Forum Maneuver — a forum maneuver beaten in three Texas courts.
• Keeping a Foreign Employer in a U.S. Court — a foreign employer held in a U.S. court under Rule 4(k)(2).

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. See all case studies.