“Good fences make good neighbors.” Robert Frost, “Mending Wall”

In a time when we speak of the need for walls on our borders, we are also seeing a revival of the application of the doctrine of forum non conveniens to send matters involving foreign law, foreign litigants and having little or no impact on U.S. public policy back to a more convenient forum found elsewhere. For too long, U.S. jurists particularly in “gateway” jurisdictions like Florida felt more inclined to be the “default” courthouse for all global disputes and act as policeman to the world. These altruistic efforts on the part of both federal and state jurists are inconsistent with the realities of today, and not at all practical in execution especially given the budget tightening requirements place upon our judicial systems, which for the most part are already heavily congested. As of 2017, reports show that both the state and federal judicial caseloads continue to rise year over year. At the same time, the judiciaries are required to handle their congested dockets on significantly reduced budgets.