United States: Supreme Court Decision in Societe Nationale Industrielle Aerospatiale et al. V. United States District Court for The Southern District of IOWA (Hague Evidence Convention; Extraterritorial Discovery in U.S. Courts)

Abstract

This decision follows an appeal of the May 1986 District Court decision [25 I.L.M. 771 (1986)] in which 145 consolidated personal injury claims were dismissed on the basis of forum non conveniens. The District Court conditioned its decision By requiring Union Carbide to consent to the jurisdiction of the Indian courts, to agree to any judgment of the Indian courts and to abide by U.S. pretrial procedural rules. The Court of Appeals addressed each of these conditions and modified the District Court's order. In the appeal, attorneys for the victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas leak challenged the decision to move the hearings to India, while Union Carbide contended that it is unfair to hold Union Carbide to different standards for discovery of evidence than India would have to follow in the Indian courts.