Seventh Circuit Upholds Dismissal of TVPRA Claims Against Neil Gaiman on Forum Non Conveniens Grounds
July 7, 2026
On June 29, 2026, in Pavlovich v. Gaiman, the Seventh Circuit upheld the dismissal of claims against author Neil Gaiman for sex trafficking and forced labor under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) on grounds of forum non conveniens, concluding that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it held that New Zealand would be a more appropriate forum. A similar complaint against Gaiman’s wife, filed in Massachusetts, was dismissed for the same reason, with an appeal to the First Circuit pending.
I have previously written about the TVPRA claims in this case, including their application to conduct outside the United States. The district court’s forum non conveniens dismissal was not surprising, given the dispute’s close ties to New Zealand. Neither was the Seventh Circuit’s affirmance, given that appellate review is subject to a deferential “abuse of discretion” standard.
The Seventh Circuit’s decision is notable, however, for the connection it draws between forum non conveniens and the principle of international comity. The decision also notes, but does not decide, the question whether the doctrine of forum non conveniens applies when Congress has created an extraterritorial cause of action.
Rape in New Zealand
Scarlett Pavlovich alleged that Gaiman repeatedly raped her when she worked as a live-in nanny for him and his wife, Amanda Palmer, and that Palmer facilitated the sexual abuse. Pavlovich (a citizen of New Zealand) sued Gaiman (a U.K. national) in Wisconsin, where he now resides, and Palmer (a U.S. national) in Massachusetts, where she now resides. Pavlovich brought claims against both defendants under the TVPRA for sex trafficking, forced labor, trafficking in forced labor, and conspiracy, as well as tort claims under state law.
The TVPRA is a federal criminal statute that expressly applies extraterritorially when “an alleged offender” is a U.S. national. It also provides a civil cause of action for victims against perpetrators and anyone who benefits from participation in a venture that they should have known engaged in violations of the Act.
The district court dismissed under the doctrine of forum non conveniens, concluding that “New Zealand has a much stronger interest in this case than the United States does and, on the whole, New Zealand is a more convenient forum than the United States for resolving this dispute.”
The Seventh Circuit’s Decision
The Seventh Circuit affirmed in a thoughtful opinion by Judge Joshua P. Kolar. The federal doctrine of forum non conveniens requires a threshold showing that there is an available and adequate alternative forum. If there is, a court must weigh private- and public-interest factors to determine if dismissal is warranted. A district court’s dismissal is reviewed on appeal for abuse of discretion, making it hard to overturn unless the court completely ignored one of the factors or made another legal error.
Alternative Forum
Judge Kolar began with the alternative forum requirement. New Zealand was plainly an available forum because Gaiman had consented to be sued there, but Pavlovich argued that it was not adequate because New Zealand permitted only punitive damages, not compensatory damages, and would require her to post security for Gaiman’s defense costs, which she cannot afford.
As Judge Kolar correctly noted, under Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno (1981), a difference in the substantive law fails this test only “if the remedy provided by the alternative forum is so clearly inadequate or unsatisfactory that it is no remedy at all.” Here, he concluded, “punitive damages are a remedy available to Pavlovich in New Zealand.” Nor did the requirement to post security render New Zealand inadequate. Other U.S. courts have held that similar requirements are acceptable, and New Zealand’s is discretionary and may be waived by the local court.
Interest Factors
Judge Kolar then turned to the private- and public-interest factors, considering first how much weight to give Pavlovich’s choice of forum. Under Piper, a foreign plaintiff’s choice of a U.S. forum is given “less deference.” Federal courts seem divided on what exactly this means. The Ninth Circuit has emphasized that “less deference is not the same thing as no deference.” The Third has noted that, even when less deference is given, “dismissal for forum non conveniens is the exception rather than the rule.” And the Second has stated that such an “action should be dismissed only if the chosen forum is shown to be genuinely inconvenient and the selected forum significantly preferable.” The Seventh Circuit, by contrast, seems to treat deference to a foreign plaintiff’s choice as just a “tie breaker,” which is what Judge Kolar did here.
Private-interest factors focus on which forum is more convenient for the litigation. The district court’s conclusion that New Zealand offers better access to evidence than the United States was not an abuse of discretion, he reasoned, because New Zealand does not permit general discovery for out-of-country litigation.
Public-interest factors focus on which forum has the stronger connection to the dispute. Pavlovich argued that Congress expressed a strong U.S. interest by providing that the TVPRA’s civil remedy applies extraterritorially, a proposition that Gaiman disputed. As Judge Kolar noted, the Fourth Circuit has held this cause of action applies to foreign conduct, but the Seventh Circuit has not yet addressed the question. (The issue is on appeal to the Seventh Circuit in a separate case, Lun Xu v. Milwaukee Electric Tool Co., in which I filed an amicus brief). But he found it unnecessary to decide the question here because even if the TVPRA’s civil remedy applies abroad, New Zealand still has the stronger interest.
“New Zealand has a weighty public-policy interest in ensuring its citizens use its one-of-a-kind accident-compensation scheme to redress harms suffered on its soil,” Judge Kolar reasoned. “New Zealand’s compensation scheme offers more limited remedies than those in the United States,” he continued. “Enacting and enforcing this scheme is New Zealand’s public-policy prerogative.”
International Comity
It is notable that Judge Kolar connected deference to New Zealand courts under the doctrine of forum non conveniens to the principle of international comity. “[W]hile the Supreme Court has yet to explicitly consider international comity in forum non conveniens,” he noted, “Justices have nevertheless described the doctrine as ‘grounded in … international comity principles’” (quoting Justice Sotomayor’s concurring opinion in Abitron Austria GmbH v. Hetronic International, Inc. (2023)). I agree, having identified forum non conveniens as one of many doctrines of international comity in an article published a decade ago.
As a general matter, international comity is a principal of deference to foreign government actors. Forum non conveniens is a doctrine of adjudicative comity that defers to foreign courts, whereas the recognition of foreign law is generally considered to be a question of prescriptive comity. Judge Kolar’s decision in Pavlovich draws an interesting connection between these two kinds of comity by using New Zealand’s interest in applying its law as a reason to dismiss the case in deference to New Zealand’s courts. Although it is sometimes useful to distinguish different kinds of international comity doctrines, it is also worth remembering that they are often connected in important ways.
Forum Non Conveniens and Extraterritorial Statutes
In her briefs, Pavlovich argued that the doctrine of forum non conveniens does not apply when Congress has created an extraterritorial cause of action. The Seventh Circuit did not address this question because it found that Pavlovich had waived it (twice).
The argument, as I understand it, is that the TVPRA’s cause of action, 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a), is also a specific venue statute and that the doctrine of forum non conveniens in inapplicable when Congress enacts such a statute. This seems wrong to me for several reasons.
First, courts in the United States have generally (though not universally) held that specific venue provisions will not preclude forum non conveniens dismissal. (For case examples and discussion, see Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law § 424, Reporters’ Note 1.)
Second, it is not clear to me that § 1595(a) is a specific venue statute. It states that a victim of a TVPRA violation may sue the perpetrator “in an appropriate district court of the United States and may recover damages and reasonable attorneys fees” (emphasis added). It says nothing about what makes a district court “appropriate,” seemingly leaving that question to be determined by other rules. It is quite different from the Clayton Act’s venue provision for antitrust claims, for example, which says: “Any suit, action, or proceeding under the antitrust laws against a corporation may be brought not only in the judicial district whereof it is an inhabitant, but also in any district wherein it may be found or transacts business; and all process in such cases may be served in the district of which it is an inhabitant, or wherever it may be found.”
Third, when Congress wants to override the doctrine of forum non conveniens, it knows how to do so. The Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), in 18 U.S.C. § 2334(d), expressly bars dismissal of civil claims “on the grounds of the inconvenience or inappropriateness of the forum chosen” unless stringent conditions are met. And Congress felt it necessary to add this provision even though the ATA has a specific venue provision in 18 U.S.C. § 2334(a). The recently enacted Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2025 also expressly prohibits dismissal of Holocaust art expropriation claims on forum non conveniens and other grounds. The TVPRA has no similar language.
Conclusion
The TVPRA provides an important remedy for victims of human trafficking and forced labor. I have explained both in blog posts and in amicus briefs why and how its civil cause of action applies extraterritorially. But the fact that the statute applies extraterritorially does not preclude dismissal on other grounds like forum non conveniens. The district court reasonably found that dismissal was warranted in this case, and the Seventh Circuit was right to affirm.