Ferens v. John Deere Co.

Ferens (plaintiff) lost his hand in a Pennsylvania accident involving a John Deere (defendant) combine. After Pennsylvania's tort statute of limitations ran, the Ferenses filed contract claims in Pennsylvania federal court (still timely there) and separately filed tort claims in Mississippi federal court, where Mississippi's borrowing statute let them use Mississippi's longer limitations period while applying Pennsylvania substantive law. The Ferenses then moved to transfer the Mississippi tort case to Pennsylvania under Section 1404(a) for convenience, and the Mississippi court granted the transfer. Once transferred, the Pennsylvania court applied Pennsylvania's own limitations period and dismissed the tort claims as untimely; after a remand from the Supreme Court on a due-process theory, the Third Circuit instead held that transferor choice-of-law rules simply don't apply when the plaintiff, rather than the defendant, requests the transfer.