Robert H. Jackson

“ But it holds that a district court may abdicate its jurisdiction when a defendant shows to the satisfaction of a district court that it would be more convenient and less vexatious for the defendant if the trial were held in another jurisdiction. Neither the venue statute nor the statute which has governed jurisdiction since 1789 contains any indication or implication that a federal district court, once satisfied that jurisdiction and venue requirements have been met, may decline to exercise its jurisdiction. ”

“ The doctrine leaves much to the discretion of the court to which plaintiff resorts, and experience has not shown a judicial tendency to renounce one's own jurisdiction so strong as to result in many abuses. [7]
If the combination and weight of factors requisite to given results are difficult to forecast or state, those to be considered are not difficult to name. An interest to be considered, and the one likely to be most pressed, is the private interest of the litigant. Important considerations are the relative ease of access to sources of proof ”

“ Even where federal rights binding on state courts under the Constitution are sought to be adjudged, this Court has sustained state courts in a refusal to entertain a litigation between a nonresident and a foreign corporation or between two foreign corporations. ”

“ The broad and indefinite discretion left to federal courts to decide the question of convenience from the welter of factors which are relevant to such a judgment, will inevitably produce a complex of close and indistinguishable decisions from which accurate prediction of the proper forum will become difficult, if not impossible. ”

“ But the open door may admit those who seek not simply justice but perhaps justice blended with some harassment. A plaintiff sometimes is under temptation to resort to a strategy of f rcing the trial at a most inconvenient place for an adversary, even at some inconvenience to himself.
Many of the states have met misuse of venue by investing courts with a discretion to change the place of trial on various grounds, such as the convenience of witnesses and the ends of justice. [5] The federal law contains no such express criteria to guide the district court in exercising its power. ”

“ Administrative difficulties follow for courts when litigation is piled up in congested centers instead of being handled at its origin. Jury duty is a burden that ought not to be imposed upon the people of a community which has no relation to the litigation. In cases which touch the affairs of many persons, there is reason for holding the trial in their view and reach rather than in remote parts of the country where they can learn of it by report only. ”

“ His affidavits and argument are devoted to controvering claims as to defendant's inconvenience rather than to showing that the present forum serves any convenience of his own, with one exception. The only justification for trial in New York advanced here is one rejected by the district court and is set forth in the brief as follows: 'This Court can readily realize that an action of this type, involving as it does a claim for damages in an amount close to $400,000, is one which may stagger the imagination of a local jury which is surely unaccustomed to dealing with amounts of such a nature. ”

“ As penalty for error, the injured individual may not only suffer serious financial loss through the delay and expense of litigation, but discover that his claim has been barred by the statute of limitations in the proper forum while he was erroneously pursuing it elsewhere.' Davis v. ”

“ Plaintiff is an individual residing and doing business in Virginia. The accident in which plaintiff alleges to have been damaged occurred in Lynchburg, Virginia. Plaintiff brought this action in the Federal District Court in New York. Section 11 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, 1 Stat. 78, carried over into the Judicial Code, § 24, 28 U.S.C. § 41 (1) , 28 U.S.C.A. § 41 (1) , confers jurisdiction upon federal district courts of all actions at law between citizens of different states. ”

“ Courts of equity developed to afford relief where a money judgment in the common law courts provided no adequate remedy for an injured person. [10] From the beginning of equitable jurisdiction up to now, the chancery courts have generally granted or withheld their special remedies at their discretion; and 'courts of admiralty * * * act upon enlarged principles of equity.' O'Brien v. ”

“ It also claims a need to interplead an alleged independent contractor which made the delivery of the gasoline and which is a Virginia corporation domiciled in Lynchburg, that it cannot interplead in New York. There also are approximately 350 persons residing in and around Lynchburg who stored with plaintiff the goods for the damage to which he seeks to recover. The extent to which they have left the community since the fire and the number of them who will actually be needed is in dispute. The complaint alleges that defendant's conduct violated Lynchburg ordinances. ”

“ Guaranty Trust Co., supra.
No such discretionary authority to decline to decide a case, however, has, before today, been vested in federal courts in actions for money judgments deriving from statutes or the common law. ”