Background
Mickey Trotter sued Grady Crawford Construction Company, Inc. and Clemon Durham in Louisiana’s 19th Judicial District Court in East Baton Rouge Parish. The opinion does not describe the underlying claims, but it states that Trotter was domiciled in Mississippi and that the accident occurred in Mississippi.
Durham moved to dismiss the action under Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure article 123 on forum non conveniens grounds, seeking to have the dispute heard in Mississippi. After the district court declined to dismiss the case, Durham applied to the First Circuit for supervisory review.
The Court’s Holding
The First Circuit denied Durham’s supervisory writ application. The court provided no majority reasoning, leaving the district court’s ruling in place and allowing the Louisiana action to proceed at that stage.
Judge Theriot dissented. He concluded that the parties’ and witnesses’ convenience and the interest of justice required litigation in Mississippi because Trotter was domiciled there and the accident occurred there. He would have reversed, granted Durham’s motion, and remanded for consideration of article 123(C), followed by entry of a dismissal without prejudice under article 123(B).
Key Takeaways
- The First Circuit declined to disturb the district court’s refusal to dismiss the case for forum non conveniens.
- The writ denial contains no explanation of the majority’s reasoning and does not establish that dismissal would never be appropriate.
- Judge Theriot would have required dismissal without prejudice after the district court addressed the conditions contemplated by article 123(C).
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates the difficulty of obtaining supervisory relief from a trial court’s forum non conveniens ruling, even when the plaintiff and the underlying accident are connected to another state. Because the majority issued only a writ denial, the opinion’s substantive analysis comes solely from the dissent.