Texas Court Affirms Forum Non Conveniens Dismissal of Case involving Bangladeshi Gas Well Explosions
Increasingly, foreign plaintiffs want to use US courts to adjudicate disputes that arose overseas. The Texas Court of Appeals' decision in Lalila v. Parker Drilling Co., 2009 WL 618248 (Tex. App. -- Houston [1st Dist.] Mar. 12, 2009), is a good example of a court's use of the doctrine of forum non conveniens to control its docket and avoid adjudication of such disputes.
In Lalila, 766 Bangladeshis sued a number of defendants in Texas state court over two gas well explosions in Tangratila, Bangladesh, asserting causes of action in negligence, nuisance, trespass, and conversion. The Texas defendants moved to dismiss for forum non conveniens. The trial court granted the motion, which the appellate court reviewed for abuse of discretion.
Texas is one of the few states to have codified the rules relating to forum non conveniens. That statute provides that if an act or omission occurring in Texas was a proximate or producing the injury, then forum non conveniens dismissal is not available. The court noted, however, that both proximate and producing cause require "causation in fact," which "means the defendant's act or omission was a substantial factor in bringing about the plaintiff's injury, which would not otherwise have occurred." The court reviewed the various acts that plaintiffs alleged occurred in Texas (design of the rig and parts, negligent supervision of the gas well project), concluding that plaintiffs' complaint never connected them up to the injuries suffered in Bangladesh in such a way as to meet the "causation in fact" requirement.
The court then proceeded to evaluate Bangladesh as a forum. The court rejected plaintiff's criticism of the courts as corrupt, saying the evidence was based on hearsay from only three Bangladeshi attorneys. The court gave little weight to the fact that Bangladeshi courts do not have a class action procedure, noting that it has joinder and is a judicial system based on English common law that has the types of torts asserted by Lalila.
The court also noted the legal inability and prohibitive costs of bringing witnesses from Bangladesh and translating their testimony, as well as the fact that the vast majority of evidence resides in Bangladesh. The court concluded that the balance of public and private interests clearly weighed in favor of Bangladesh. And thus, the court concluded that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing the case for foreign non conveniens.
