## Facts

- On December 2–3, 1984, toxic methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, causing thousands of deaths and injuries.
- The plant was owned and operated by Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), an Indian company incorporated under Indian law.
- Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), a New York corporation, owned a majority interest in UCIL.
- Indian victims and the Union of India (as statutory representative of victims) filed numerous civil actions in U.S. courts; the cases were centralized in the Southern District of New York.
- The district court dismissed on forum non conveniens grounds, conditioned on UCC submitting to Indian jurisdiction, waiving certain limitations defenses, agreeing to enforcement of any Indian judgment in the United States, and providing discovery under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in the Indian proceedings.
- Plaintiffs appealed the dismissal; UCC cross-appealed the conditions.

## Issues

1. Whether dismissal on forum non conveniens grounds in favor of litigation in India was a proper exercise of discretion where most plaintiffs were foreign and the injury occurred abroad.
2. Whether India constituted an adequate alternative forum for the claims.
3. Whether the district court properly conditioned dismissal on (a) UCC’s submission to Indian jurisdiction, (b) waiver of certain statute-of-limitations defenses, (c) advance consent to U.S. enforcement of Indian judgments, and (d) U.S.-style discovery in the Indian proceedings.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit affirmed the forum non conveniens dismissal in favor of India.
- The court held that India was an adequate alternative forum, particularly given UCC’s conditioned submission to Indian jurisdiction.
- The court agreed that private-interest factors strongly favored India because key evidence, witnesses, and the accident site were located there and Indian law was expected to govern.
- The court agreed that public-interest factors favored India due to India’s predominant local and sovereign interests and the burden of trying a foreign mass disaster in a U.S. court.
- The court gave reduced deference to plaintiffs’ U.S. forum choice because the plaintiffs were overwhelmingly foreign and the litigation centered on events and entities in India.
- The court upheld conditions requiring UCC to submit to Indian jurisdiction and waive limitations defenses arising after U.S. filings.
- The court struck conditions requiring advance agreement to U.S. enforcement of Indian judgments and imposing unilateral U.S.-style discovery in India.

## Legal Principles

- A forum non conveniens dismissal is reviewed for abuse of discretion and may be granted when an adequate alternative forum exists and private and public interest factors favor the alternative forum.
- Foreign plaintiffs’ choice of a U.S. forum receives reduced deference, especially when the operative facts, parties, and regulatory interests are predominantly foreign.
- An alternative forum is “adequate” when defendants are amenable to process there and the forum can provide a meaningful remedy; conditional dismissal may be used to ensure availability.
- Conditional dismissal may properly require a defendant to submit to the alternative forum’s jurisdiction and waive certain limitations defenses to prevent loss of a forum.
- A court should not impose conditions that are unnecessary under applicable recognition law (such as blanket advance consent to enforcement) or that unfairly displace the foreign forum’s procedural rules (such as unilateral U.S.-style discovery).

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit held that litigation arising from the Bhopal gas disaster should proceed in India, affirming dismissal on forum non conveniens grounds while limiting conditions to those needed to secure an available Indian forum and rejecting conditions that precommitted enforcement or imposed one-sided U.S. discovery in foreign proceedings.


In re Union Carbide Corp. Gas Plant Disaster at Bhopal, India in Dec. 1984, 809 F.2d 195 (2d Cir. 1987)