The Delaware Supreme Court on Thursday declined to adopt a rule that would require state courts to determine that an alternative forum is available to plaintiffs before dismissing cases on the grounds of forum non conveniens.

A majority of the justices cited concerns of international comity and limited judicial resources in rejecting the rule, proposed by a group of Argentinian farmers who had accused Philip Morris Global Brands Inc., which is incorporated in Delaware, of exposing them to harmful chemicals in Monsanto Co.'s Roundup herbicide.

For years, the Delaware courts have considered the existence of a suitable alternative forum as a factor when conducting forum non conveniens analyses, but the high court has avoided making it a threshold requirement on motions to dismiss. Thursday's ruling marked the first time the justices addressed the issue directly.

In a 17-page opinion, Justice Collins J. Seitz Jr. acknowledged that Delaware was in the minority of state courts, which are generally free to develop their own procedures for handling cross-jurisdictional domestic and foreign disputes. But he said the longstanding approach afforded issue it deserves under the forum non conveniens framework.

“It is not unfair to suggest that, rather than requiring cases to proceed in Delaware in the absence of an alternative forum, the Superior Court should consider, on a case-by-case basis, whether the court's resources should be deployed to resolve cases with little connection to Delaware—as the court did here,” Seitz wrote for the court.

The ruling upheld the lower court's dismissal of the suit by Argentinian parents, who claimed that exposure to Roundup on tobacco farms run by Philip Morris Global Brands and Philip Morris USA Inc. had caused birth defects in their children. Judge Vivian L. Medinilla tossed the case in 2015, saying that litigating the case in Delaware would cause Philip Morris “overwhelming hardship” because all of the witnesses and evidence were located in Argentina, where the underlying conduct occurred.

On appeal, the plaintiffs argued that, “as a matter of logic and precedent,” Medinilla should have first determined whether Philip Morris could be sued in Argentina. They did not challenge Monsanto's dismissal from the case.

“The ability to actually sue the defendant in the asserted alternate forum is a fundamental threshold requirement for any forum non conveniens dismissal,” attorneys for the plaintiffs said in court documents.

“The standard factors for evaluating forum non conveniens dismissals in Delaware make no sense if the defendant will never appear in the foreign forum.”

But Seitz said that state courts are often forced to shoulder the burden of transnational disputes, which tend to be complex and strain judicial resources.

Seitz also noted that some countries, through preemptive jurisdiction, have “erected barriers” that prevent plaintiffs from pursuing litigation in their home countries once a case has been filed in the United States. Using those kinds of blocking statutes, the foreign jurisdiction must dismiss a second filed case, even if an American court dismissed the first-filed case on forum non conveniens grounds.

“The approach we adopt here might encourage foreign jurisdictions to rethink laws and rules shifting to the U.S. courts disputes that are more closely connected to their own countries and citizens,” he said.

Justice James T. Vaughn Jr. was the only of the court's five judges not to endorse the majority position, saying that he “would join the great weight of authority that holds that in order to grant a motion to dismiss for forum non conveniens, a threshold step is to determine whether an adequate, alternative forum exists.”

However, Vaughn said he ultimately agreed with outcome in this case.

“Where factors such as preemptive jurisdiction may affect consideration of an alternative available forum, as may be the case here, a different rule may be appropriate,” he wrote in a concurring opinion.

Patrick W. Dennis, who argued on behalf of Philip Morris, said he was “delighted” with the result, which would be “important in the long-run.”

“The result is an affirmation of the trial court's decision, which is exactly what we argued for,” said Dennis, a partner with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

An attorney for the plaintiffs was not immediately available to comment.

The plaintiffs were represented by Charles S. Siegel of Waters & Kraus, Ian Connor Bifferato, Richard S. Gebelein and Thomas F. Driscoll III of The Bifferato Firm and Steven J. Phillips of Phillips & Paolicelli.

Philip Morris Global Brands was represented by Matthew S. Hellman, Elizabeth A. Coleman and Casey T. Grabenstein of Jenner & Block and Donald E. Reid of Morris Nichols Arsht & Tunnell.

Philip Morris USA was represented by Dennis, Perlette Michèle Jura, Miguel A. Estrada and Amir C. Tayrani, all of Gibson Dunn and P. Clarkson Collins, Jr. and David J. Soldo of Morris James.

The case was captioned Aranda v. Philip Morris.