Gullone, Abad and Osorio (and many others) are all the same face of a very negative contemporary approach of US justice to foreign people who claim to have been damaged by illicit acts of US corporations.

De facto, this creates an immunity/impunity-inspired doctrine.

If these people claim in the US, they are told that they should have litigated the case elsewhere, in their home country. No decisions on the merits, no enforcement.
If they claim in their home country, they are told that their foras are corrupt, impartial, they lack due process, and so those judgements can’t have any binding effect. No enforcement again.

One could easily expect these motions to be filed by the defendants that are under scrutiny: in the very end, who is so crazy not to try escaping liability? It is however less easy to accept that judges fuel this approach.

So a number of questions arise at this point. They are true questions (meaning: I am truly curious to know), even when the answers are supposed to be quite straightforward under a majority opinion.

Do American judges agree that in an ideal model, an alleged tortfeasor must be amenable to trial somewhere?
Do agree American judges that at least from an historical experience, the best guarantees a defendant can find, are in its home country’s courts?
Are American judges aware of the fact that continuous forum non dismissals increase an already high isolationism of the U.S.A. in the world context?
Are they aware that only a very small percentage of the cases dismissed on forum non by US courts are refiled in the plaintiffs’ home country?
Are American jugdes aware that by way of keeping protecting American defendants from any kind of claims from foreign claimants (reads: impunity/immunity), they are giving green light to underinvestment on safety on products to be marketed abroad?
Are American judges aware that the doors of European justice are always open to American plaintiffs?
Are American judges aware that if an American citizen gets injured in Europe as a result of a defective product manufactured in Europe by an European company, he can set unamovable forum in the European company’s headquarters’s court?
Are American judges aware that the forum non doctrine is illegal in the EU since 2005, it is very rarely used in Australia and, with probably the exception of Canada, it is as such a resource used by only one country in the whole world? (Isolationism comeback)
In conclusion, would there be an American judge willing to explain where, when and how (if it at all possible…) Osorio should have filed its claim against the defendant?

Thank you very much.

Stefano Bertone, a plaintiff lawyer from Italy.

The whole litigation (minus the recent developments) has made its way into a movie called Bananas!; Dole has just recently withdrawn its defamation lawsuit against the filmmaker. See http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202434738199&Go_iBananasi_Dole_Drops_Lawsuit_Against_Documentary_Maker#

Any case law as to whether Nicaragua is an adequate forum for the purpose of forum non conveniens analysis ?