PITTMAN, Judge.
Siemag, Inc. ("Siemag"), and Sandvik Mining and Construction USA, LLC ("Sandvik"), each seek a writ of mandamus compelling the Walker Circuit Court to vacate an order denying their motions to transfer to the Tuscaloosa Circuit Court a civil action brought in May 2007 by Prince U. Hagler, Jr., and his wife, who are both Walker County residents, against Siemag, Sandvik, and a number of other named and fictitiously named defendants stemming from a workplace injury to Hagler resulting in the amputation of both of his arms, which injury allegedly arose out of and in the scope of his employment with Jim Walter Resources, Inc. ("Jim Walter"). For the reasons specified herein, we deny both petitions.
The plaintiffs' complaint asserted a claim against Jim Walter under the Alabama Workers' Compensation Act, Ala. Code 1975, § 25-5-1 et seq., as well as tort claims against individual and corporate third parties who were allegedly also responsible for Hagler's injuries. Hagler and his wife alleged in the complaint that venue was proper in Walker County because, among other things, (a) two individual defendants who were co-employees of Hagler, Ken Russell and David Hicks, were Walker County residents; and (b) the plaintiffs resided in Walker County and all the corporate defendants did business by agent in Walker County. Jim Walter filed a motion to sever the workers' compensation claim from the action and filed a motion to dismiss or, in the alternative, to transfer the action to the Tuscaloosa Circuit Court, asserting that the plaintiffs' claims arose in Tuscaloosa County and that Jim Walter did no business by agent in Walker County. Other corporate defendants, including Siemag and Sandvik, thereafter filed motions to transfer the action to the Tuscaloosa Circuit Court on the grounds that Walker County was either an improper or an inconvenient forum. The plaintiffs filed a unified response to the motions to sever, dismiss, and transfer, contending that the action should proceed in the Walker Circuit Court.
On November 2, 2009, 94 days after the entry of the Walker Circuit Court's order (i.e., well outside the presumptively reasonable time for seeking an extraordinary writ as set forth in Rule 21(a)(3), Ala. R.App. P.), Sandvik filed a mandamus petition in this court; after that petition was assigned case no. 2090134, this court, acting ex mero motu, consolidated that case with case no. 2090016. However, upon further review of the reasons offered by Sandvik for filing its petition outside the presumptively reasonable time (principally that it did not receive notice that Siemag had filed its mandamus petition until after the presumptively reasonable time for seeking review of the July 31, 2009, order had expired) does not state a sound basis for Sandvik's having delayed in seeking mandamus review on its own behalf. Unlike Rule 4, Ala. R.App. P., which allows a party to take a cross-appeal from a final judgment or an appealable interlocutory order within 14 days after any other's party's timely filed notice of appeal, there is no mechanism in Rule 21 that would allow a respondent to file a "cross-petition" after the expiration of the presumptively reasonable time for seeking review by a petition for an extraordinary writ. For that reason, Sandvik's petition in case no. 2090134 is denied as having been untimely filed.
Ex parte Scott Bridge Co., 834 So.2d 79, 80-81 (Ala.2002); accord Ex parte Cavalier Home Builders, L.L.C., 920 So.2d 1105, 1108 (Ala.Civ.App.2005). We further note that Ex parte Yocum, 963 So.2d 600 (Ala. 2007), which also involved a challenge to a trial court's denial of a motion to transfer a civil action to a forum that was purportedly more convenient, notes that: (a) "[t]he trial court should give deference to the plaintiff's choice of a proper forum"; and (b) the "`burden is on the party moving for the transfer to prove that the transferee forum is significantly more convenient than the plaintiff's chosen forum.'" 963 So.2d at 602 (quoting Ex parte Nichols, 757 So.2d 374, 378 (Ala.1999)).
In its petition and briefs, Siemag posits that the convenience of parties and witnesses would be served by a transfer of the case from Walker County to Tuscaloosa County, citing the location of the mine where Hagler's injury occurred and the relative remoteness of Walker County to air-transportation centers in Tuscaloosa and Birmingham. However, as Hagler and his wife point out in their brief, the prospect that any defendant's witnesses or corporate representatives having knowledge of facts pertinent to the plaintiffs' claims will be required to travel to Alabama by air is entirely speculative given the silence of the evidentiary record concerning the locations of those witnesses. Further, to the extent that any nonparty employees of the corporate defendants will be required to attend trial and to testify, any inconvenience to them "does not weigh heavily where ... their presence at trial can be secured by those defendants." Ex parte Yocum, 963 So.2d at 602. Finally, we note that the plaintiffs filed several affidavits bearing on the convenience issue, including (a) Hagler's own affidavit, in which he testified that because of the loss of his arms he will require automotive transportation by family members from his home in Sumiton and that travel to Tuscaloosa, a distance of 75 miles, will present a greater hardship than travel to Jasper, a distance of 15 miles; and (b) the affidavit of Victor Argo, a Jefferson County resident and an eyewitness to Hagler's injury who testified that two individual defendants reside in Walker County and that it would be more convenient for him to attend a deposition and a trial in Walker County. Because the burden of demonstrating that Tuscaloosa County is significantly more convenient than the plaintiffs' chosen forum of Walker County rests upon the shoulders of Siemag, see Yocum 963 So.2d at 602, and because Siemag has not carried that burden, we reject the contention that the convenience of parties or witnesses compels a transfer here.
We next turn to the "interest of justice" prong of § 6-3-21.1, Ala. Code 1975, which Siemag also invokes. Analysis of that prong requires consideration of "`whether the "nexus" or "connection" between the plaintiff's action and the original forum is strong enough to warrant burdening the plaintiff's forum with the action.'" Ex parte Price, 47 So.3d 1221, 1225 (Ala. 2010) (quoting Ex parte First Tennessee Bank Nat'l Ass'n, 994 So.2d 906, 911 (Ala. 2008)). Stated another way, if a plaintiff's action has little, if any, connection to the chosen forum, it should be transferred in the interests of justice. See, e.g., Ex parte Verbena United Methodist Church, 953 So.2d 395, 400-01 (Ala.2006) (trial court acted outside its discretion in refusing to transfer action alleging defamation, invasion-of-privacy, and tort-of-outrage claims
In this case, Hagler sustained injuries while working for Jim Walter in its # 4 mine, which is located near Brookwood, a community in Tuscaloosa County; after the incident made the basis of the plaintiffs' claims, representatives from the United States Mine Safety and Health Administration's office in Birmingham traveled to the mine and conducted an investigation, resulting in the issuance of several administrative citations pertaining to the actions and omissions of Jim Walter and its employees at the # 4 mine during the period before Hagler's injury. Citing those factors, Tuscaloosa County's extensive mining activity, and Tuscaloosa County's larger judge allocation and juror pools, Siemag contends that Tuscaloosa County has a strong interest in having the action adjudicated within its borders—so strong, Siemag says, that the trial court's decision not to transfer the case was clear error.
However, at the time of Hagler's injury and at the initiation of this action, both Hagler and his wife were residents of Walker County, a county with its own extensive history of mining coal. E.g., Drummond Co. v. Gunter, 588 So.2d 465, 466 (Ala.Civ.App.1991), and Thomason v. Mullinax, 403 So.2d 883, 885 (Ala.1981) (mentioning coal-mining operations on land in Walker County); Alabama Power Co. v. Cummings, 466 So.2d 99, 100 (Ala.1985) (noting site of Gorgas Mine, America # 3, in Walker County); and State v. Bankhead Mining Co., 279 Ala. 566, 568, 188 So.2d 527, 528 (1966) ("Bankhead Mining Company, Inc., has its princip[al] place of business in Walker County and is engaged exclusively in strip coal mining operations."). This extensive history was noted by Dr. Robert Cox, an affiant whose testimony, in pertinent part, was quoted at length by the trial court in its order denying the motions to transfer:
Dr. Cox's observations are borne out by the joinder by the plaintiffs of two individual co-employee defendants who undisputedly reside in Walker County but commute to Tuscaloosa County to work in Jim Walter's Brookwood mine. We further note that the trial court, in its order, took judicial notice that a large number of its case volume was, and historically had been, coal-mining-related cases, and it observed that it had "tried many coal-mine-related cases and [acquired] experience and knowledge of coal mining and its unique terminology." It can properly be inferred that Walker County judges and jurors, no less than Tuscaloosa County judges and jurors, would likely be familiar with the work, machinery, and practices of the coalmining industry.
The Legislature, for its part, has seen fit to declare in Ala.Code 1975, § 6-3-7(a), that civil actions against corporations "may be brought in any of the following counties" (emphasis added): (1) a county "in which a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to the claim occurred"; (2) the county of "the corporation's principal office in this state"; or (3) the county where "the plaintiff resided ...
As the trial court noted in its order, the defendants who sought transfer of the plaintiffs' action to Tuscaloosa County were able to cite only two reported opinions in which an appellate court had concluded that the retention of a case in the county of a plaintiff's residence was outside the discretion of the trial court—Ex parte New England Mut. Life Ins. Co., 663 So.2d 952 (Ala.1995), and Ex parte Kane, 989 So.2d 509 (Ala.2008). Like the trial court, we conclude that both cases are distinguishable.
In New England Life, which was decided when § 6-3-7 provided that any personal-injury actions against corporations could be brought in the county of the plaintiff's residence at the time of suit if the corporation did business by agent there,
Unlike in New England Life and Kane, however, there is in this case no current prospect of burdensome parallel civil litigation in another county involving the same defendants and witnesses that would warrant trumping the plaintiffs' choice of venue in their county of residence. In addition,
Based upon the foregoing facts and authorities, we conclude that the Walker Circuit Court did not act outside the bounds of its discretion in ordering that the plaintiffs' action remain in Walker County rather than transferring it to Tuscaloosa County. Therefore, we deny Sandvik's untimely petition for a writ of mandamus in case no. 2090134 and Siemag's petition for a writ of mandamus in case no. 2090016.
PETITIONS DENIED.
THOMPSON, P.J., and BRYAN, THOMAS, and MOORE, JJ., concur.