Forum Non Conveniens in Illinois: Factors, Deadline, and Appeals

Forum non conveniens in Illinois is a doctrine that lets a judge dismiss or transfer a lawsuit to a more convenient court even though the current court has proper jurisdiction and venue. The defendant has to clear a high bar: the private and public interest factors must “strongly favor” the other forum before a court will override the plaintiff’s choice.¹ Illinois Supreme Court Rule 187 controls the procedure, including a strict 90-day filing deadline and built-in protections for plaintiffs whose cases get moved out of state.²

The Standard Illinois Courts Apply

Illinois courts begin with a strong presumption that the plaintiff’s forum choice controls. The Illinois Supreme Court has stated it plainly: “the plaintiff’s forum choice should rarely be disturbed” unless the relevant factors strongly favor transfer.³ This is not a neutral weighing. The defendant must show that the balance of private and public interest factors heavily tips toward a different location.¹

That presumption weakens when the plaintiff does not live in the chosen county, or when the events underlying the lawsuit happened somewhere else. Less deference is not the same as no deference. Even when both of those circumstances apply, the defendant still has to show that the totality of the factors strongly favors transfer.⁴ Many motions fail here. Defendants often show that another county would be somewhat more convenient, and somewhat is not enough.

Private Interest Factors

Private interest factors deal with the practical realities of getting a case to trial. The Illinois Supreme Court in Dawdy v. Union Pacific Railroad Co. grouped them into several categories:⁵

Convenience of the parties, including where each side is located, travel distance, and the cost of litigating in the chosen forum versus the alternative.
Access to evidence, meaning the physical location of documents, records, and real evidence. If a jury needs to view a specific site, proximity matters.
Witness availability, covering both the cost of bringing cooperative witnesses to court and the court’s subpoena power over unwilling ones.
Other practical considerations affecting whether the trial can proceed efficiently and affordably.

Witness issues tend to drive these motions more than anything else. If every fact witness lives in another county and no one with direct knowledge is near the chosen courthouse, that carries real weight. The analysis cuts both ways, though. A defendant who complains that the plaintiff’s forum is inconvenient for defense witnesses while ignoring that the proposed alternative is equally inconvenient for the plaintiff’s witnesses will not get far.

Public Interest Factors

Public interest factors look to the court system and the community rather than the individual litigants. Dawdy identified three core considerations:⁵

Local interest in local controversies. A car accident in Sangamon County is best resolved by a Sangamon County jury, not a Cook County jury with no connection to the events.
Fairness to jurors. Requiring residents of one county to serve on a case with no local connection burdens them unfairly.
Court congestion. This factor alone rarely wins a motion, but it reinforces transfer when the other factors already point away from the chosen forum.

Choice of law feeds into this analysis too. When the law of another jurisdiction governs the dispute, having a judge in that jurisdiction handle the case from start to finish avoids confusion. A Cook County judge applying Montana law to a Montana accident involving Montana residents is exactly the scenario this doctrine was designed to address.

The 90-Day Filing Deadline

The 90-day clock is the most important procedural detail in this area. Under Rule 187(a), a forum non conveniens motion must be filed no later than 90 days after the last day allowed for filing the movant’s answer.² Miss the deadline and the right to challenge the forum on convenience grounds is effectively waived. In a case with multiple defendants, each defendant’s 90-day window runs from the deadline for their own answer, not from the first answer filed.

What a Winning Motion Looks Like

Rule 187 does not set a rigid checklist, but Illinois case law has made clear what a successful motion contains. General complaints about inconvenience go nowhere. The defendant needs specifics: names and addresses of witnesses, the distance each witness would travel to the current courthouse versus the proposed alternative, and the location of key evidence.

Rule 187(b) allows the motion to be supported by affidavit, and opposing parties can respond with their own affidavits and evidence. Defendants who win these motions almost always submit affidavits detailing witness locations, explaining why specific witnesses are essential, and quantifying the added cost of litigating in the plaintiff’s chosen forum. Vague assertions that the case “belongs” elsewhere do not overcome the plaintiff’s presumptive right to choose. The rule also provides that hearings be scheduled to give both sides enough time to conduct discovery on the factual issues raised by the motion.²

What Happens If the Motion Is Granted

The aftermath depends on whether the case stays in Illinois or leaves the state. Rule 187(c) handles the two scenarios differently.²

Transfer Within Illinois

When the court transfers a case to a different circuit court within Illinois, the clerk certifies and transmits the entire case file to the receiving court. The case then proceeds as if it had been filed there originally. The party who requested the transfer pays both the transfer costs and the filing fee in the new court.²

Dismissal When the Forum Is Out of State

When the more appropriate forum is in another state, the Illinois court cannot transfer the case directly. It dismisses the case instead, but with conditions designed to protect the plaintiff:

If the plaintiff refiles in the other forum within six months of the dismissal order, the defendant must accept service of process from that court.
If the statute of limitations has already expired in the other forum, the defendant must waive that defense.

These conditions have teeth. If the defendant refuses to honor them, the case gets reinstated in the Illinois court that dismissed it. And if the other state’s court refuses to accept jurisdiction, the plaintiff has 30 days from that refusal to reinstate the Illinois case.² A defendant cannot successfully argue that Illinois is the wrong courthouse and then block the plaintiff from getting into the right one.

Appealing the Ruling

Most interlocutory orders in Illinois require permission from the appellate court before you can appeal, and forum non conveniens rulings are no exception. Under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 306(a)(2), a party may petition for leave to appeal from an order allowing or denying a motion to dismiss or transfer on forum non conveniens grounds.⁶ Both plaintiffs and defendants can seek review.

The standard of review makes these appeals difficult to win. Appellate courts evaluate forum non conveniens decisions under an abuse of discretion standard, which is about as deferential as review gets.¹ The appellant has to show that no reasonable judge would have reached the same conclusion. Disagreeing with how the trial court weighed particular factors is not enough. If the record shows the trial court considered the right factors and reached a defensible conclusion, the ruling stands. The real fight happens at the trial court level, and the quality of the evidentiary record built during the motion is usually what determines the outcome.

Not the Same as Improper Venue

Forum non conveniens is often confused with a venue challenge, and the distinction matters. A motion to transfer for improper venue argues that the plaintiff filed in a county Illinois law does not authorize for that type of case. It is governed by 735 ILCS 5/2-104 and must be raised in the responsive pleading or it is waived permanently. A forum non conveniens motion concedes that venue is technically proper and argues only that another location would be fairer and more practical. If venue is actually improper, filing a forum non conveniens motion instead of a venue challenge wastes time and may waive the stronger argument.

1
FindLaw. Langenhorst v. Norfolk Southern Railway Company
2
Supreme Court of Illinois. Illinois Supreme Court Rule 187 – Motions on Grounds of Forum Non Conveniens
3
FindLaw. First American Bank v. Guerine
4
Illinois Courts. Elling v. Graves – Illinois Appellate Court Opinion
5
FindLaw. Dawdy v. Union Pacific Railroad Company
6
Supreme Court of Illinois. Illinois Supreme Court Rule 306 – Interlocutory Appeals by Permission