Missouri Senate

Senate Substitute

VENUE FOR INSURANCE COMPANIES

This act specifies that an insurance company shall be deemed to reside in the county in which it maintains its registered office. A foreign insurance company without a registered office in any county in Missouri shall be deemed to reside in, and be a resident of, Cole County.

Venue for tort and contract claims in which there is a count against an insurer shall be in the county where the insurer resides, or in the county in which the insured's principal place of residence was located at the time the insurance was issued. Venue shall be determined by these provisions even if the insured's rights or claims under the policy have been assigned or transferred to another party. However, venue shall not be affected by intervention by an insurance company in an action where recovery has been contractually limited to the proceeds of an insurance policy. These provisions shall not apply to actions relating to uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage nor shall they apply to a vexatious refusal to pay claim to collect an amount due under uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage.

The act also specifies how venue shall be determined in actions against an insurer relating to uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage. If the accident occurred in Missouri, venue shall be in the county in which the accident occurred. If the accident occurred outside of Missouri, venue shall be in the county where the insurer resides, or the Missouri county of the insured's principal place of residence at the time of the accident.

JOINDER

Claims arising out of separate purchases of the same product or separate incidents involving the same product shall not be joined regardless of whether the claims arise out of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences with a common question of law.

In addition to current law regarding when plaintiffs and defendants may join in one civil action, this act states that in tort actions two or more plaintiffs may be joined in a single action only if each plaintiff can independently establish proper venue.

Likewise, two or more defendants may be joined in a single action only if the plaintiff can establish proper venue for each defendant individually. If proper venue or personal jurisdiction cannot be established for each plaintiff or defendant, then the plaintiff or defendant will be deemed misjoined, the claims will be severed from the action, and the claims shall be transferred to a county with proper venue. For claims already filed but for which a final judgment has not been issued as of the effective date of this act, any pretrial rulings made by the transferring court may only be reconsidered for good cause. If there is no county in Missouri in which venue exists, then the claims shall be dismissed without prejudice.

Misjoined parties may be joined only where at least one claim is properly pending in the court and all of the parties have waived their objection to the misjoinder.

VENUE

For the purposes of meeting the venue requirement, the principal place of residence for an individual whose employment conduct with a corporation in at least one count is at issue in the action shall be the corporation's principal place of residence. The principal place of residence for a corporation is the county where the corporation has its registered agent. When all defendants are nonresidents, proper venue in a non-tort action is any county in this state if there is personal jurisdiction over each defendant, independent of each other defendant.

In tort actions where the plaintiff was first injured outside the state of Missouri, venue shall be the, rather than any, county where the defendant corporation has its principal place of residence. If the defendant is an individual, then venue shall the, rather than any, county where the defendant has his or her principal place of residence, which shall be that of his or her employer corporation if any count alleges conduct in the course of employment.

In tort actions, each plaintiff shall establish that the court where the action is filed is a proper venue against each defendant, independent of the claims brought by any other plaintiff or against any other defendant. Venue cannot be established by joinder or intervention. If the county where the action is filed is not proper venue, the plaintiff shall be transferred to a county where proper venue can be established. If no such county exists, then the claim shall be dismissed without prejudice.

Currently, a products liability order of dismissal for a defendant whose liability is based solely on his or her status as a seller shall not divest a court of venue or jurisdiction that was proper at the beginning of the action. Further, the defendant seller dismissed in the action shall remain a party to such action for venue and jurisdiction purposes. This act repeals these provisions.

This act is similar to provisions of SB 546 (2018), SB 1102 (2018) and SB 258 (2017).

KATIE O'BRIEN