460
Opinion of Stevens, J.
ana's selective "open forum" statute, which exempts only federal maritime and Jones Act claims from the State's general forum non conveniens policy. The statute arguably implicates concerns about disruptive local restrictions on maritime commerce that help explain why admiralty has been a federal subject. I am not persuaded, however, that the answer to those concerns lies in an extension of the patchwork maritime pre-emption doctrine. If this Court's maritime pre-emption rulings can be arranged into any pattern, it is a most haphazard one. See generally Currie, Federalism and the Admiralty: "The Devil's Own Mess," 1960 S. Ct. Rev. 158. Such a capricious doctrine is unlikely to aid the free flow of commerce, and threatens to have the opposite effect.
In order to decide this case, it is enough to observe that maritime pre-emption doctrine allows state courts to use their own procedures in saving clause and Jones Act cases, see Offshore Logistics, Inc. v. Tallentire, 477 U. S. 207, 222- 223 (1986), and that forum non conveniens is, as the Court observes, best classified as a kind of secondary venue rule.2 Equally significant is the fact that Congress, which has unquestioned power to decree uniformity in maritime matters, has declined to set forth a federal forum convenience standard for admiralty cases. Ante, at 455-457. It also appears to have withheld from Jones Act defendants the right of removal generally applicable to claims based on federal law. See 28 U. S. C. § 1445(a); 46 U. S. C. App. § 688(a); In re Du-tile, 935 F. 2d 61, 62 (CA5 1991). Congress may "determine whether uniformity of regulation is required or diversity is permissible." Washington, 264 U. S., at 234 (Brandeis, J.,
2 Even if we were to impose a forum non conveniens rule on Louisiana, the resulting standard would be altogether different from the federal version because Louisiana has chosen to bear the various costs of entertaining far-flung claims. See Gulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert, 330 U. S. 501, 508-509 (1947) (forum's own interests must be weighed in forum non conveniens balancing test). Instead, forum non conveniens would operate simply as an admonition to take heed of the inconvenience to the foreign defendant.
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