456
Opinion of the Court
U. S. C. App. § 688(a). Accordingly, we have held that the Jones Act adopts "the entire judicially developed doctrine of liability" under the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA), 35 Stat. 65, as amended, 45 U. S. C. § 51 et seq. Kernan v. American Dredging Co., 355 U. S. 426, 439 (1958). More particularly, we have held that the Jones Act adopts the "uniformity requirement" of the FELA, requiring state courts to apply a uniform federal law. Garrett, supra, at 244. And—to come to the point of this excursus—despite that uniformity requirement we held in Missouri ex rel. Southern R. Co. v. Mayfield, 340 U. S. 1, 5 (1950), that a state court presiding over an action pursuant to the FELA "should be freed to decide the availability of the principle of forum non conveniens in these suits according to its own local law." We declared forum non conveniens to be a matter of "local policy," id., at 4, a proposition well substantiated by the local nature of the "public factors" relevant to the forum non conveniens determination. See Reyno, supra, at 241, and n. 6 (quoting Gilbert, 330 U. S., at 509).
We think it evident that the rule which Mayfield announced for the FELA applies as well to the Jones Act, which in turn supports the view that maritime commerce in general does not require a uniform rule of forum non conveniens. Amicus Maritime Law Association of the United States argues that "whether or not it is appropriate to analogize from FELA to the Jones Act, Mayfield cannot save the result below because the Louisiana statute abolishes the forum non conveniens doctrine in all maritime cases, not just those arising under the Jones Act." Brief for Maritime Law Association as Amicus Curiae 16. It is true enough that the Mayfield rule does not operate ex proprio vigore beyond the field of the FELA and (by incorporation) the Jones Act. But harmonization of general admiralty law with congressional enactments would have little meaning if we were to hold that, though forum non conveniens is a local matter for purposes of the Jones Act, it is nevertheless a matter of global concern requiring uniformity under gen-
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