forum non conveniens

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forum non conveniens

(for-uhm nahn cahn-veen-nee-ehns) n. Latin for a forum which is not convenient. This doctrine is employed when the court chosen by the plaintiff (the party suing) is inconvenient for witnesses or poses an undue hardship on the defendants, who must petition the court for an order transferring the case to a more convenient court. A typical example is a lawsuit arising from an accident involving an out-of-state resident who files the complaint in his/her home state (or in the defendant driver's home state), when the witnesses and doctors who treated the plaintiff are in the state where the accident occurred, which makes the latter state the most convenient location for trial.

forum non conveniens

noun better alternative forum available, better choice of jurisdictions, in appropriate forum, inconvenient forum, more appropriate court, more convenient court
Associated concepts: forum shopping, lex fori, lis alibi pendens

forum non conveniens

in private international law, the doctrine that allows a court to decline its own jurisdiction because there is another jurisdiction that can more conveniently try the case.

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References in periodicals archive ?

While the strength of a case's ties to the United States are [sic] clearly relevant for a forum non-conveniens or choice-of-law analysis, it does not impact whether a court has admiralty jurisdiction under section 1333(1).

Jurisdiction (maritime)

It increases the risk of litigation in national courts over trustee decisions, because of unpredictability of application of immunity in such a context and the dependence of forum non-conveniens dismissal on the availability of an adequate alternative forum.