## Facts

- Albert J. Ferens, a Pennsylvania resident, lost a hand in Pennsylvania while using a harvester manufactured by John Deere Co., a Delaware corporation doing business in multiple states.
- The Ferenses did not file Pennsylvania tort claims within Pennsylvania’s 2-year limitations period.
- In the third year after the accident, they filed (1) a diversity action in federal court in Pennsylvania asserting contract and warranty theories subject to longer limitations periods, and (2) a separate diversity tort action in federal court in Mississippi.
- Mississippi was chosen because, under Klaxon, the Mississippi federal court would apply Mississippi choice-of-law rules, which would result in application of Mississippi’s longer (6-year) tort limitations period.
- After filing in Mississippi, the Ferenses moved under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a) to transfer the Mississippi tort case to the Western District of Pennsylvania for convenience; the transfer was granted, and the tort case was consolidated with the Pennsylvania action.
- The Pennsylvania federal court applied Pennsylvania’s shorter tort limitations period to the transferred tort claims and dismissed them as time-barred, reasoning that Van Dusen’s transferor-law rule applied only to defendant-initiated transfers.

## Issues

1. After a § 1404(a) transfer initiated by the plaintiff in a diversity case, must the transferee court apply the state law (including choice-of-law rules) that the transferor court would have applied?

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the judgment dismissing the tort claims and remanded.
- The Court held that, following a § 1404(a) transfer, the transferee court must apply the same state law, including the transferor state’s choice-of-law rules, regardless of whether the plaintiff or the defendant requested the transfer.
- The dissent would have limited the transferor-law rule to defendant-initiated transfers, warning that the majority rule facilitates strategic forum selection.

## Legal Principles

- In diversity cases, a § 1404(a) transfer changes only the place of litigation; it does not change the governing state law that would have applied in the transferor forum.
- The transferee court must apply the transferor forum’s state law, including its choice-of-law rules, whether the transfer is sought by the plaintiff or the defendant.
- A uniform transferor-law rule in § 1404(a) transfers supports the Erie and Klaxon requirement that federal diversity litigation mirror the state-law result that would obtain absent the federal procedural mechanism.

## Conclusion

A plaintiff-initiated § 1404(a) transfer does not alter the applicable state law: the transferee court must apply the transferor forum’s law, including its choice-of-law rules, thereby preserving the state-law consequences of the plaintiff’s original, proper forum selection.


Ferens v. John Deere Co., 494 U.S. 516 (1990)