Few concepts are more steeped in Pennsylvania law than the doctrine of forum non conveniens. Memorialized in Pennsylvania Rule of Civil Procedure 1006, the doctrine provides defendants a “necessary counterbalance to a plaintiff’s choice of forum to insure fairness and practicality.” See Bratic v. Rubendall, 99 A.3d 1, 6 (Pa. 2014) (cleaned up). Historically, to establish forum non conveniens, a defendant had to show the plaintiff’s chosen forum is either oppressive or vexatious without any particular form of proof. Through a series of recent decisions, however, the Pennsylvania Superior Court has sown uncertainty in the once-settled area of the law, subjecting some litigants to new, more rigid requirements and others to the traditional, flexible standard that has existed under Pennsylvania law for over a quarter-century. With each new decision, the intermediate appellate court reveals another piece of the puzzle. But as a fragmented image takes shape, litigants and trial courts are looking to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to solve the puzzle.

Background

Forum non conveniens was once a reliable tool for defendants to transfer a case to a more appropriate forum in the commonwealth if litigating in the plaintiff’s chosen forum would be oppressive or vexatious. In applying the doctrine, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has consistently emphasized the necessity of a fact-specific assessment, refusing to impose a specific standard of proof and instead focusing on the totality of the circumstances with considerable discretion granted to trial courts. See Bratic, 99 A.3d at 6-8; Cheeseman v. Lethal Exterminator, 701 A.2d 156 (Pa. 1997).