In Martinez v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 86 A.3d 1102 (Del. 2014), the Delaware Supreme Court, in granting a motion to dismiss for forum non conveniens under the traditional Cryo-Maid factors, held that important and novel issues of other sovereigns are best determined by their own courts where practicable. “To that end, where this court is being asked to decide complex and unsettled issues of foreign law, it will consider the defendant’s interest in obtaining an authoritative ruling from the relevant foreign courts on the legal issue on which its liability hinges, as distinguished from a predictive, non-authoritative ruling by our courts,” according to the opinion. Two recent cases, one each from the Superior Court and the Delaware Court of Chancery, illustrate the application of this principle.
In Martinez, a group of 25 Argentine plaintiffs filed claims against E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., the corporate “great-great-grand subsidiary” of a textile plant located in Argentina. The claims involved injuries allegedly sustained by the plaintiffs or their decedents from asbestos exposure after working in the textile plant. The Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s ruling that dismissal under the doctrine of forum non conveniens was appropriate. In so doing, the court recognized “the importance of the right of all parties (not only the plaintiffs) to have important, uncertain questions of law decided by the courts whose law is at stake.” The plaintiffs who are not residents of Delaware, whose injuries did not take place in Delaware, and whose claims are not governed by Delaware law have a less substantial interest in having their claims adjudicated in Delaware.
