 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
First Financial Trust Co. v. Scott11/18/1996
ORIGINAL PROCEEDING ON WRIT OF SUPERINTENDING CONTROL
RANSOM, Justice.
{1} As personal representative of the estate of David Siglock and as conservator for his surviving children, First Financial Trust Company seeks a writ of superintending control pursuant to Rule 12-504 NMRA 1996. First Financial filed an action under the wrongful death statute, NMSA 1978, § 41-2-1 (Repl. Pamp. 1996), and Linda Siglock, individually as the widow of David Siglock, joined to assert a claim for loss of spousal consortium. Plaintiffs sued the Los Alamos Ski Club, Inc., in the Second Judicial District Court within Bernalillo County where First Financial has its principal place of business. The Ski Club, which operates the Pajarito Ski Area in Los Alamos County, moved to transfer venue based on the doctrine of forum non conveniens, asserting that the First Judicial District, Los Alamos County, was the appropriate forum for the action.
{2} The district court found that the action had significantly more contacts with Los Alamos County than Bernalillo County and granted the motion to transfer the lawsuit. First Financial petitioned this Court for a writ of superintending control, seeking to quash the transfer of venue. After hearing oral argument, this Court granted an alternative writ of superintending control and ordered briefs and further argument on the issue whether forum non conveniens is or should be a doctrine available in New Mexico to allow intrastate transfer from one court to another. Holding that an intrastate doctrine of forum non conveniens does not exist in New Mexico, we make permanent the alternative writ of superintending control and quash the transfer of venue.
{3} The accident. David Siglock, a resident of Los Alamos, New Mexico, was found dead at the foot of a ski run at the Pajarito Ski Area in Los Alamos. He apparently had lost control while skiing and was fatally injured when he struck a tree. He had been skiing down a beginners run named "I Don't Care" or another run named "One More Time," trails that intersect near where Siglock's body was found. The estate alleges it was "I Don't Care" and that the Ski Club intentionally had made this run, the only run classified for novices, unusually and dangerously fast for the purpose of videotaping a re-creation of a downhill race the following day. An employee of the Ski Club had skied the run earlier that day and determined that the run was very "hard, icy, and fast." The estate alleges that the employee expressed her concerns to a ski school instructor, but no action was taken. While there were no witnesses to the fatal accident, there were many witnesses to the condition of the ski run that morning.
{4} Venue. The venue statute provides in relevant part that:
All civil actions commenced in the district courts shall be brought and shall be commenced in counties as follows and not otherwise:
A. First, except as provided in Subsection F of this section relating to foreign corporations, all transitory actions shall be brought in the county where either the plaintiff or defendant, or any one of them in case there is more than one of either, resides; or second, in the county where the contract sued on was made or is to be performed or where the cause of action originated or indebtedness sued on was incurred; or third, in any county in which the defendant or either of them may be found in the judicial district where the defendant resides.
NMSA 1978, § 38-3-1(A) (Cum. Supp. 1996). Venue was proper in the Second Judicial District, therefore, because First Financial has its primary place of business within Bernalillo County.
{5} Forum non conveniens. The doc
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 New Mexico Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|