explaining that to the extent we [the Court] have continued to recognize that federal courts have the power to dismiss damages actions under the common-law forum non conve-niens doctrine, we [the Court] have done so only in “cases where the alternative forum is abroad.”
How later courts described this case
- explaining that to the extent we [the Court] have continued to recognize that federal courts have the power to dismiss damages actions under the common-law forum non conve-niens doctrine, we [the Court] have done so only in “cases where the alternative forum is abroad.”
- concluding that the state where “a substantial amount, if not all, of the alleged culpable conduct occurred . . . has a stronger public interest in adjudicating this dispute”
- characterizing the state doctrine of forum non conveniens as "procedural rather than substantive" and noting that "[ujniformity of process (beyond the rudimentary elements of procedural fairness) is assuredly not what the law of admiralty seeks to achieve, since it is supposed to apply in all the courts of the world"
- characterizing the state doctrine of forum non conveniens as “procedural rather than substantive” and noting that “[u]niformity of process (beyond the rudimentary elements of procedural fairness) is assuredly not what the law of admiralty seeks to achieve, since it is supposed to apply in all the courts of the world”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Justice Souter,
concurring.
I join in the opinion of the Court because I agree that in most cases the characterization of a state rule as substantive *458 or procedural will be a sound surrogate for the conclusion that would follow from a more discursive pre-emption analysis. The distinction between substance and procedure will, however, sometimes be obscure. As to those close cases, how a given rule is characterized for purposes of determining whether federal maritime law pre-empts state law will turn on whether the state rule unduly interferes with the federal interest in maintaining the free flow of maritime commerce.