Wiley Blount Rutledge

“ It is that whenever Congress has vested courts with jurisdiction to hear and determine causes and has invested complaining litigants with a right of choice among them which is inconsistent with the exercise by those courts of discretionary power to defeat the choice so made, the doctrine can have no effect. ”

“ In such situations, it is generally true that, whatever the forum chosen by the plaintiff, it will be inconvenient for some of the defendants and often for most of them. When there is such diffusion of possible venue, that fact of course would be basis for declining to apply the doctrine of forum non conveniens, even if applicable. ”

“ That any suit, action, or proceeding under the antitrust laws against a corporation may be brought not only in the judicial district whereof it is an inhabitant, but also in any district wherein it may be found or transacts business ”

“ Scophony Corporation, 333 U.S. 795, 68 S.Ct. 855, we recently considered the meaning and effect of § 12 of the Clayton Act, [1] providing for venue and service of process in civil antitrust proceedings against private corporations. This case brings before us another phase of the section's effect in like proceedings. The principal question, and the only one we find it necessary to consider, is whether the choice of forums given to the plaintiff by § 12 is subject to qualification by judicial application of the doctrine of forum non conveniens. ”

“ When therefore Congress came to face the problem of making the nation's antitrust policy more effective through the Clayton Act's provisions, that body was not confronted with any problem of abuse by plaintiffs in selecting venue for antitrust suits; nor was it concerned with any question of providing means by which the defendants in such suits might defeat the plaintif § choice to serve their own convenience. Congress' concern was quite the opposite. ”

“ And it may well be doubted that the sum total of inconvenience and injustice resulting will be as great as would follow, for both private plaintiffs and the public, from allowing the inescapable delay incident to the exercise of such a discretionary power. For once the power were found to exist, it is more than likely that injection of the issue would become a common incident of antitrust suits, and create the disadvantage of delay for all concerned. ”

“ The states are as widely scattered as California, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, Texas and Washington. The larger local transpora tion systems include those of Baltimore, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles and Oakland. The largest concentrations of smaller systems are in Illinois, with eleven cities; California with nine (excluding Los Angeles) ”

“ Often the time necessary or taken is much longer. To inject into this overlengthened procedure what would amount to an additional preliminary r ial and review upon the convenience of the forum could not but add approximately another year or longer to the time essential for disposing of the cases, indeed for reaching the merits. [38] Although some instances of inconvenience to defendants will arise from the absence of discretionary power, that will be unavoidably true in almost any event. ”

“ See 7 F.R.D. 456, 465.↑ The Government stresses that three of the five supplier defendants transact business and are 'found,' cf. note 1, in the California district; the volume of sales allegedly restrained is much greater on the Pacific Coast than elsewhere; substantial portions of the evidence, oral and documentary, will be produced from California, etc. ”

“ The local operating companies were not named as parties defendant.↑ The appellee companies fall into two groups. The largest, which may be called the supplier group, includes the six last named in note 2 above. ”

“ Id. 9662-9664.↑ In opposing the suggestion to confer jurisdiction on the state courts, Representative Floyd argued, inter alia, that 'any friend of this legislation, as I am sure the gentleman from Indiana (Representative Cullop) is, ought not to aid those who are fighting this legislation-the trusts and the combines of this country-by loading it down with questionable amendments that will tend to defeat it and destroy it in the end.' Id. 9663.↑ In place of the House amendment to § 12 of 'or has an agent,' the Senate committee substituted this language: 'Or transacts any business ”