450
Opinion of the Court
But the doctrine's application has not been unique to admiralty. When the Court held, in Gilbert, supra, that forum non conveniens applied to all federal diversity cases, Justice Black's dissent argued that the doctrine had been applied in maritime cases "[f]or reasons peculiar to the special problems of admiralty." Id., at 513. The Court disagreed, reciting a long history of valid application of the doctrine by state courts, both at law and in equity. Id., at 504-505, and n. 4. It observed that the problem of plaintiffs' misusing venue to the inconvenience of defendants "is a very old one affecting the administration of the courts as well as the rights of litigants, and both in England and in this country the common law worked out techniques and criteria for dealing with it." Id., at 507. Our most recent opinion dealing with forum non conveniens, Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno, 454 U. S. 235 (1981), recognized that the doctrine "originated in Scotland, and became part of the common law of many States," id., at 248, n. 13 (citation omitted), and treated the forum non conveniens analysis of Canada Malting Co. v. Paterson S. S., Ltd., 285 U. S. 413 (1932), an admiralty case, as binding precedent in the nonadmiralty context.
In sum, the doctrine of forum non conveniens neither originated in admiralty nor has exclusive application there. To the contrary, it is and has long been a doctrine of general application. Louisiana's refusal to apply forum non conveniens does not, therefore, work "material prejudice to [a] characteristic featur[e] of the general maritime law." Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, 244 U. S., at 216.
B
Petitioner correctly points out that the decision here under review produces disuniformity. As the Fifth Circuit noted in Ikospentakis v. Thalassic S. S. Agency, 915 F. 2d 176, 179 (1990), maritime defendants "have access to a forum non conveniens defense in federal court that is not presently recognized in Louisiana state courts." We must therefore con-
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