Bigio v. Coca-Cola Co.

448 F.3d 176, 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 11592, 2006 WL 1236789
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedMay 9, 2006
DocketDocket No. 05-2426-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by30 cases

This text of 448 F.3d 176 (Bigio v. Coca-Cola Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bigio v. Coca-Cola Co., 448 F.3d 176, 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 11592, 2006 WL 1236789 (2d Cir. 2006).

Opinions

RAKOFF, District Judge.

Plaintiffs — three members of the Bigio family and a company they control (collectively, the “Bigios”) — appeal from the dismissal of their suit against the Coca-Cola Company and its wholly owned subsidiary (collectively, “Coca-Cola”). When this case was previously before this Court, see Bigio v. Coca-Cola Co., 239 F.3d 440 (2d Cir.2000), the pertinent allegations were [178]*178stated in some detail, so here they may be-stated briefly. The Bigios had large commercial holdings in Egypt that were wrongfully seized during the. Nasser regime because the Bigio family was Jewish. The Bigio family then fled to Canada, but, after Nasser died, the Egyptian Government ordered the property returned to the Bigios. However, the state-owned entity then holding the property refused to comply and, instead, sold or, according to defendants, leased the bottling plant here in issue to a joint venture in which a substantial interest was purchased by the Bigios’ former tenant, Coca-Cola, which rejected the Bigios’ claims to ownership. Unable to obtain relief in the Egyptian courts, the Bigios brought suit in the United States against Coca-Cola for violation of the Alien Tort Claims Act and for common law claims such as conversion.

In our previous decision, we affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the claim under the Alien Tort Claims Act but reversed its dismissal of the common law claims pursuant to the “Aet-of-State” doctrine. We found the Act-of-State doctrine inapplicable because “the resolution of this case by United States courts will not likely impact on international relations or embarrass or hinder the executive in the realm of foreign relations.” Bigio, 239 F.3d at 452 (internal quotation marks omitted). On remand, the district court again dismissed the remaining claims, this time on the ground of international comity or, in the alternative, on the ground of forum non conveniens. Bigio v. Coca-Cola Co., No. 97 Civ. 2858, 2005 WL 287397, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1587 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 3, 2005). Plaintiffs appeal from that decision.

As to international comity, while application of this doctrine ordinarily lies within the discretion of the district court, in this instance no such deference is appropriate because the district court applied the wrong legal standard. Specifically, the district court applied the seven-factor test articulated in Timberlane Lumber Co. v. Bank of Am. Nat’l Trust & Savings Ass’n, 749 F.2d 1378 (9th Cir.1984). That test is used to determine whether a court should apply United States law extraterritorially, see O.N.E. Shipping, Ltd. v. Flota Mercante Grancolombiana, S.A., 830 F.2d 449 (2d Cir.1987), but that is not in issue here. Rather, the only issue of international comity properly raised here is whether adjudication of this case by a United States court would offend “amicable working relationships” with Egypt. JP Morgan Chase Bank v. Altos Hornos de Mex., S.A. de C.V., 412 F.3d 418, 423 (2d Cir.2005). Cf. In re Maxwell Comm. Corp., 93 F.3d 1036, 1047 (2d Cir.1996) (“We realize that ‘international comity’ may describe two distinct doctrines: as a canon of construction, it might shorten the reach of a statute; second, it may be viewed as a discretionary act of deference by a national court to decline to exercise jurisdiction in a case properly adjudicated in a foreign state, the so-called comity among courts.”). See generally Hilton v. Guyot, 159 U.S. 113, 163-64, 16 S.Ct. 139, 40 L.Ed. 95 (1895).

Throughout the long pendency of this lawsuit, the Government of Egypt has never raised the slightest objection to adjudication of the instant controversy by United States courts. Cf. Jota v. Texaco Inc., 157 F.3d 153, 157 (2d Cir.1998). Moreover, this Court has already determined that resolution of this case by United States courts will “not likely impact on international relations” with Egypt. Bigio, 239 F.3d at 452 (internal quotation marks omitted). In its present posture, this is a common law suit for damages primarily between Canadian citizens and a United States company,1 which may likely focus [179]*179on what Coca-Cola knew about the Bigios’ ownership rights before it acquired its present interest in the Egyptian bottling plant. While adjudication of plaintiffs’ common law claims may also require some modest application of Egyptian law, see Bigio, 239 F.3d at 454, the courts of this Circuit are regularly called upon to interpret foreign law without thereby offending principles of international comity. See, e.g., United States v. Schultz, 333 F.3d 393 (2d Cir.2003) (Egyptian law); Karaha Bodas Co. v. Perusahaan Pertambangan Minyak Dan Gas Bumi Negara (“Pertamina”), 313 F.3d 70 (2d Cir.2002) (Indonesian law); cf. First Am. Corp. v. Price Waterhouse LLP, 154 F.3d 16, 22 (2d Cir.1998).

As for forum non conveniens, the issue, once again, is not whether the district court abused its broad discretion, but whether it misapprehended or misapplied the relevant legal standards. See Iragorri v. United Techs. Corp., 274 F.3d 65, 72 (2d Cir.2001) (en banc) (“In our recent cases, we vacated dismissals for forum non conveniens because we believed that the district courts had misapplied the basic rules .... ”). Here, the district court, while reciting the principle that even a foreign plaintiffs decision to sue in a U.S. forum is entitled to some weight, Bigio, 2005 WL 287397 at * 4-5, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1587, at *12, appears, so far as its discussion of the balance of conveniences is concerned, to have given the plaintiffs’ choice of forum no weight whatsoever, id. 2005 WL 287397 at * 5-6, at *14-17. But as we emphasized in our en banc decision in Iragom, the more that a plaintiff, even a foreign plaintiff, chooses to sue in a United States court for “legitimate reasons,” the more deference must be given to that choice. Iragorri, 274 F.3d at 73. Furthermore, even where the degree of deference is reduced, “[t]he action should be dismissed only if the chosen forum is shown to be genuinely inconvenient and the selected forum significantly preferable.” Id. at 74-75.

Here, the district court appears to have overlooked the legitimate and substantial reasons for plaintiffs choosing to bring this suit in defendants’ own country, the United States, rather than in Egypt, after plaintiffs’ efforts to seek relief from the Egyptian authorities proved abortive. It was perfectly reasonable under these circumstances for the plaintiffs to bring their action against Coca-Cola, the only U.S. company involved, in the United States.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
448 F.3d 176, 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 11592, 2006 WL 1236789, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bigio-v-coca-cola-co-ca2-2006.