Inconvenient Forum at Issue Again in Four Loko Death Suit

An Illinois appeals court has reversed a trial court determination that Illinois
would not be an inconvenient forum for the defendants in a wrongful death
lawsuit filed by the parents of a 15-year-old boy who allegedly drank two cans
of the alcohol energy drink Four Loko and was killed on a Virginia highway
after becoming disoriented. Rupp v. Phusion Projects, LLC, No. 1-12-2056 (Ill.
App. Ct., order entered September 27, 2013) (not precedential). Additional
information about the lawsuit appears in Issue 395 of this Update. According
to the appeals court, while the trial court correctly weighed most of the
private-interest factors presented, it should have considered the defendant’s
choice-of-law issue under the public-interest factor analysis. The appeals
court also found that the trial court erred in stating that other defendants
had not joined Phusion’s forum non conveniens motion, because the record
showed that they had done so. And finally, the court determined that the
parties’ motions to take judicial notice of related lawsuits subsequently filed
in Illinois, Virginia and other jurisdictions were not before the trial court and
must be considered on remand.