United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
F I L E D
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
January 7, 2005
for the Fifth Circuit
______________________________ Charles R. Fulbruge III
Clerk
No. 03 - 60802
______________________________
BEATRIZ DOMINGUEZ-COTA; GUADALUPE GLORIA COTA-LEYVA, Individually
and on behalf of the wrongful death beneficiaries of Leticia
Dominguez-Cota, Deceased; MARIA GUADALUPE LARA-DOMINGUEZ;
GUADALUPE GLORIA COTA-LEYVA, Individually and on behalf of the
wrongful death beneficiaries of Axel Dominguez, Deceased.
Plaintiffs-Appellants-Cross-Appellees,
VERSUS
COOPER TIRE & RUBBER CO., JOHN DOES 1-20,
Defendants- Appellees.
and
GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION; JOHN T. EBERT,
Defendants-Cross-Defendants-
Appellees-Cross-Appellees,
VERSUS
VICENTE DOMINGUEZ-MENDOZA,
Defendant-Cross-Claimant-
Appellee-Cross-Appellant
_______________________________________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern
District of Mississippi
_______________________________________________
Before REAVLEY, DAVIS and WIENER, Circuit Judges,
PER CURIAM:
This is an appeal from an order granting the Defendants’
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motion to dismiss the Plaintiffs’ claims on the basis of forum
non conveniens. For the reasons set forth below, we vacate the
order and remand the case to the district court.
I.
The underlying litigation in this appeal arises out of a
single vehicle accident that occurred on June 26, 2001, on a
Mexican national highway in Camino Tijuana/Cabo San Lucas,
Mexico. Plaintiffs, all of whom are Mexican nationals, allege
that the General Motors vehicle in which they traveled as well as
a Cooper Tire & Rubber Company tire on the vehicle, were
defective and contributed to the accident. The Plaintiffs have
also named Vincente Dominguez-Mendoza, their family member and
the driver of the vehicle, as a defendant in the underlying
action, alleging negligence and that he was thus at least
partially responsible for causing the accident. The district
court dismissed the action based on forum non conveniens.
II.
In granting the Defendants’ motion, the district court
reached the forum non conveniens issue before deciding whether it
had subject matter jurisdiction over the controversy. It is a
settled principle that, “before proceeding with a case, federal
trial and appellate courts have the duty to examine the basis for
their subject matter jurisdiction, doing so on their own motion
if necessary”. Torres v. Southern Peru Copper Corp., 113 F.3d
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540, 542 (5th Cir. 1997).1 Appellees argue that the Supreme
Court’s holding in Ruhrgas AG v. Marathon Oil Co., et al., 526
U.S. 574 (1999), grants courts the discretion to evaluate
threshold “non-merits issues” before ruling on subject matter
jurisdiction. Characterizing forum non conveniens as such a “non-
merits issue”, Appellees argue that the district court’s
dismissal of this case was justified. Appellees read Ruhrgas too
broadly.
In Ruhrgas, the Supreme Court held only that, while Article
III “requires a federal court to satisfy itself of its
jurisdiction over the subject matter before it considers the
merits of a case”, Ruhrgas, 526 U.S. at 583, the district court
did not abuse its discretion in evaluating personal jurisdiction
before it reached subject matter jurisdiction. We disagree with
Appellee that the Supreme Court’s holding can be stretched to
encompass “non-merits” issues, other than jurisdiction, such as
forum non conveniens.
Thus, we hold that the district court erred in dismissing
the case on forum non conveniens grounds without first
determining whether it had subject matter jurisdiction.
In so holding, we disagree with other Circuits that have
1
See also, 2 JAMES WM. MOORE ET AL., MOORE’S FEDERAL PRACTICE
¶12.30 (Matthew Bender 3d edition), “[E]ven if the litigants do
not identify a potential problem [with respect to subject matter
jurisdiction], it is the duty of the court - at any level of the
proceedings - to address the issue sua sponte whenever it is
perceived”.
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addressed this issue, namely the 2nd Circuit and the DC Circuit.
See In the Matter of Arbitration between Monegasque De
Reassurances S.A.M. v. Nak Naftogaz of Ukraine, 311 F.3d 488, 497
- 498 (2nd Cir. 2002). See also In re Minister Papandreou, 139
F.3d 247 (D.C. Cir. 1998).In Monegasque De Reassurances S.A.M.,
the Second Circuit held that, because it was not being called
upon to decide a constitutional issue, it was not first required
to pass on the question of jurisdiction before ruling on forum
non conveniens, a creature of statute. Monegasque de Reassurances
S.A.M., 311 F.3d at 498. Similarly, in Papandreou, a case decided
before Ruhrgas, the D.C. Court of Appeals held that “what is
beyond the power of courts lacking jurisdiction is adjudication
on the merits, the act of deciding the case”. Papandreou, 139
F.3d at 255. The holding, therefore, is that an issue not
involved with the merits is not beyond the power of courts
lacking jurisdiction. The arguments of both courts are
represented by the following passage from the D.C. opinion:
Thus, although subject-matter jurisdiction is special for
many purposes (e.g., the duty of courts to bring it up on
their own), a court that dismisses on other non-merits
grounds such as forum non conveniens and personal
jurisdiction, makes no assumption of law declaring power
that violates the separation of power principles underlying
Mansfield and Steel Company.
Papandreou, 139 F.3d at 255. Thus, both Circuits label forum non
conveniens as a non-merits issue and so hold valid the process of
using forum non conveniens as a grounds for dismissal where
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subject matter jurisdiction has not first been decided. For the
following reasons, we disagree with this analysis.
Before the Supreme Court decided Steel Co. v. Citizens for a
Better Environment, 523 U.S. 83 (1998), courts sometimes employed
a doctrine similar to that followed by the 2nd and D.C. Circuits.
This doctrine, called “hypothetical jurisdiction”, allowed a
court to assume jurisdiction for the purpose of deciding the
merits of the case without first assessing the court’s
jurisdiction. The Court, in Steel Co., rejected this technique
and held that subject matter jurisdiction must be decided first.
Steel Co., 523 U.S. at 94. In Ruhrgas, the Court reinforced Steel
Co.’s holding, but relaxed it with respect to personal
jurisdiction. That is, the Court held that where a district court
is “convinced that the challenge to the court’s subject-matter
jurisdiction is not easily resolved” and has before it a
straightforward personal jurisdiction issue, then the court does
not abuse its discretion by turning directly to personal
jurisdiction. Ruhrgas, 526 U.S. at 588.
Appellants urge an expansive reading of Ruhrgas, arguing
that the Supreme Court authorized a court to pretermit a ruling
on jurisdiction and decide the case on any “non-merits” issue.
They then characterize forum non conveniens as a non-merits
issue. As stated above, we do not read Ruhrgas broadly enough to
allow us to pretermit a decision on jurisdiction before deciding
some other “non-merits” issue. Even, however, if we could read
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Ruhrgas that broadly, we are satisfied, based on our precedent,
that “the question of the convenience of the forum is not
‘completely separate from the merits of the action.’” Van
Cauwenbreghe v. Biard, 486 U.S. 517, 527 -28 (1988). See also
Partrederieit Treausre Saga v. Joy Mfg. Co., 804 F.2d 308, 310
(5th Cir. 1986).
The forum non conveniens inquiry consists of several steps.
First, the defendant invoking the doctrine must establish
that an alternate forum is both available and adequate. An
available forum is one where the case and all the parties
can come within its jurisdiction...
Having established an available and adequate forum, the
defendant must then show that certain private factors
support dismissal. These private factors are: (1) the
relative ease of access to sources of proof; (2) the
availability of compulsory process for attendance of
unwilling, and the costs of obtaining attendance of willing,
witnesses; (3) probability of an opportunity to view the
premises, if view would be appropriate to the action; and
(4) other factors affecting the ease, speed, and expense of
trial or the enforceability of a judgment if obtained.
If these private interest factors do not indicate that
another forum is better suited for trial of the case, the
court should then examine certain public interest
factors...The public interest factors are: The
administrative difficulties flowing from court congestion,
the ‘local interest in having localized controversies
decided at home’; the interest in having the trial of a
diversity case in a forum that is at home with the law that
must govern the action; the avoidance of unnecessary
problems in conflict of laws, or in the application of
foreign law; and the unfairness of burdening citizens in an
unrelated forum with jury duty.
Brokerwood Products International, Inc. V. Cuisine Crotone, Inc.,
No. 03-30622, 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 14224, at **17 (5th Cir. July
9, 2004). In order to apply this analysis, the court must look at
the particular facts of the case, and to this extent, it must
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reach the merits. For example, the court, in evaluating the
“private factors” must review the evidence in order to determine
whether or not it will be accessible in the respective forums and
consider the fairness of litigating in the respective forums and
evaluate the difficulty of litigating the case in a forum which
has few contacts with the litigants or with the accident. For
these reasons the Supreme Court, in Biard, found that when a
federal court considers the private and public interest factors
of a forum non conveniens analysis, “the district court becomes
entangled in the merits of the underlying dispute”. Biard, 486
U.S. at 528 (1988). As a result, therefore, we are unable to
characterize forum non conveniens as a “non-merits” issue akin to
personal jurisdiction.
For the above reasons, we vacate the district court’s order
and remand the case to the district court to determine whether it
has subject matter jurisdiction over this controversy.
VACATED and REMANDED.
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