## Facts

- A Beech Queen Air aircraft (with an Excalibur conversion) crashed shortly after takeoff near Ngahinapouri, New Zealand, killing the pilot, copilot, and four passengers.
- An accident investigation concluded the crash was caused by double engine failure due to fuel starvation, despite fuel remaining in outboard tanks.
- The investigation suggested fuel mismanagement was linked to fuel selector settings and checklist use on similar aircraft with different fuel systems, and it criticized allegedly ambiguous fuel-tank terminology in the flight manual.
- The aircraft was assembled in Kansas (1965) and modified via the Excalibur conversion (1977), including fuel-system changes; some modification work occurred in Texas at facilities associated with Raytheon/Beech.
- Plaintiffs were the pilot’s and passengers’ relatives; plaintiffs and decedents were New Zealand-associated, not Texas residents.
- Many witnesses and much operational/maintenance and crash-investigation evidence were located in New Zealand, not Texas.
- New Zealand uses a statutory, no-fault accident compensation regime that provides benefits for covered injuries/deaths and generally bars tort suits for damages arising from those covered injuries.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by dismissing the case under Texas’s forum-non-conveniens statute on the ground that New Zealand was a more proper forum.
2. Whether New Zealand can be an adequate alternative forum when its accident-compensation scheme bars tort actions against the alleged tortfeasors for covered injuries and deaths.

## Decision

- The court of appeals affirmed the dismissal for forum non conveniens.
- The court held the trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding New Zealand was the forum in which the dispute would more properly be heard.
- The court held New Zealand’s no-fault compensation scheme did not make New Zealand an inadequate forum, notwithstanding the unavailability of a Texas-style tort action and damages remedy.

## Legal Principles

- Under the then-governing Texas forum-non-conveniens statute for wrongful-death actions, a court may dismiss if, for the convenience of parties and witnesses and in the interest of justice, the action would be more properly heard outside Texas.
- Appellate review of a forum-non-conveniens dismissal is for abuse of discretion, with deference to the trial court’s fact-intensive balancing.
- An alternative forum may be adequate even if it provides different remedies or less favorable law, so long as it offers a meaningful avenue of redress rather than no remedy at all.
- In weighing forum non conveniens, courts consider private-interest factors (access to proof, availability and cost of witnesses, compulsory process) and public-interest factors (local interest, administrative burden, applicable law).
- A foreign statutory compensation regime that substitutes administrative benefits for tort litigation may satisfy the “adequate forum” requirement for forum-non-conveniens purposes.

## Conclusion

The court upheld dismissal of New Zealand families’ Texas products-liability and wrongful-death claims arising from a New Zealand crash, concluding that New Zealand was the more appropriate forum and that its no-fault accident-compensation system was an adequate alternative remedy despite barring tort suits for covered injuries and deaths.


Jones v. Raytheon Aircraft Servs., Inc., 120 S.W.3d 40 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2003, no pet.)