Burlington Northern Railroad v. Ford

The Fourteenth Amendment forbids a State to “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” U. S. Const., Arndt. 14, § 1. Because the Montana venue rules neither deprive Burlington of a fundamental right nor classify along suspect lines like race or religion, they do not deny equal protection to Burlington unless they fail in rationally furthering legitimate state ends. See, e. g., United States v. Sperry Corp., 493 U. S. 52 , 64 (1989); Dallas v. Stanglin, 490 U. S. 19 , 25 (1989).

Venue rules generally reflect equity or expediency in resolving disparate interests of parties to a lawsuit in the place of trial. See, e. g., Citizens & Southern Nat. Bank v. Bougas, 434 U. S. 35 , 44, n. 10 (1977); Denver & R. G. W. R. Co. v. Trainmen, 387 U. S. 556 , 560 (1967); Van Dusen v. Barrack, 376 U. S. 612 , 623 (1964); F. James & G. Hazard, Civil Procedure 47 (3d ed. 1985). The forum preferable to one party may be undesirable to another, and the adjustment of such warring interests is a valid state concern. Cf. United States Railroad Retirement Bd. v. Fritz, 449 U. S. 166 , 178 (1980). In striking the balance between them, a State may have a number of choices, any of which would survive scrutiny, each of them passable under the standard tolerating some play in the joints of governmental machinery. See Bain Peanut Co. of Texas v. Pinson, 282 U. S. 499 , 501 (1931). Thus, we have no doubt that a State would act within its

Here, Montana has decided that the any-county rule should give way to a single-county rule where a defendant resides in Montana, arguably on the reasonable ground that a defendant should not be subjected to a plaintiff’s tactical advantage of forcing a trial far from the defendant’s residence. At the same time, Montana has weighed the interest of a defendant who does not reside in Montana differently, arguably on the equally reasonable ground that for most nonresident defendants the inconvenience will be great whether they have to defend in, say, Billings or Havre. See Power Manufacturing Co. v. Saunders, 274 U. S. 490 , 498 (1927) (Holmes, J., dissenting). Montana could thus have decided that a nonresident defendant’s interest in convenience is too slight to outweigh the plaintiff’s interest in suing in the forum of his choice.

Burlington does not, indeed, seriously contend that such a decision is constitutionally flawed as applied to individual nonresident defendants. Nor does it argue that such a rule is unconstitutional even when applied to corporate defendants without a fixed place of business in Montana. Burlington does claim, however, that the rule is unconstitutional as applied to a corporate defendant like Burlington that not only has its home office in some other State or country, but also has a place of business in Montana that would qualify as its “principal place of business” if it were a Montana corporation.

Burlington’s claim fails. Montana could reasonably have determined that a corporate defendant’s home office is generally of greater significance to the corporation’s convenience in litigation than its other offices, that foreign corporations

Of course Montana’s venue rules would have implemented that policy judgment with greater precision if they had turned on the location of a corporate defendant’s principal place of business, not on its State of incorporation. But this is hardly enough to make the rules fail rational-basis review, for “rational distinctions may be made with substantially less than mathematical exactitude.” New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U. S. 297 , 303 (1976); see Hughes v. Alexandria Scrap Corp., 426 U. S. 794 , 814 (1976); Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U. S. 61 , 78 (1911). Montana may reasonably have thought that the location of a corporate defendant’s principal place of business would not be as readily verifiable as its State of incorporation, that a rule hinging on the former would invite wasteful sideshows of venue litigation, and that obviating the sideshows would be worth the loss in precision. These possibilities, of course, put Burlington a far cry away from the point of discharging its burden of showing that the underinclusiveness and overinclusiveness of Montana’s venue rules is so great that the rules can no longer be said rationally to implement Montana’s policy judgment. See, e. g., Brownell, supra, at 584 . Besides, Burlington, having headquarters elsewhere, would not benefit even from a scheme based on domicile, and is therefore in no position to complain of Montana’s using State of incorporation as a surrogate for

Burlington is left with the argument that Power Manufacturing Co. v. Saunders, supra, controls this case. But it does not. In Saunders, we considered Arkansas’ venue rules, which restricted suit against a domestic corporation to those counties where it maintained a place of business, 274 U. S., at 491-492 , but exposed foreign corporations to suit in any county, id., at 492 . We held that the distinction lacked a rational basis and therefore deprived foreign corporate defendants of the equal protection of the laws. Id., at 494 . The statutory provision challenged in Saunders, however, applied only to foreign corporations authorized to do business in Arkansas, ibid., so that most of the corporations subject to its any-county rule probably had a place of business in Arkansas. In contrast, most of the corporations subject to Montana’s any-county rule probably do not have their principal place of business in Montana. Thus, Arkansas’ special rule for foreign corporations was tailored with significantly less precision than Montana’s, and, on the assumption that Saunders is still good law, see American Motorists Ins. Co. v. Starnes, 425 U. S. 637 , 645, n. 6 (1976), its holding does not invalidate Montana’s venue rules.

In sum, Montana’s venue rules can be understood as rationally furthering a legitimate state interest. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Montana is accordingly

Affirmed.