An Arkansas appeals court has reversed a trial court's transfer of an insurer's declaratory-judgment action to another county. 

The Court of Appeals on September 23 sided with Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Company in a venue dispute tied to a March 2024 car accident in Phillips County. A driver was behind the wheel of a vehicle she did not own when it collided with another car, then struck a second vehicle and a storage unit. The vehicle's owner had insured it through Southern Farm Bureau. The other driver and the property owners sued the at-fault driver in Phillips County for damages. 

Southern Farm Bureau had a different question: did it owe the at-fault driver anything at all? It filed a declaratory-judgment action in Pulaski County - where it has an office - arguing the driver used the car without the owner's permission, triggering a policy exclusion. The vehicle's owner confirmed as much in her answer. Southern Farm Bureau later amended the complaint to add the other driver and the property owners, as Arkansas law requires all interested parties to be included in a coverage declaration. 

The property owners pushed back on venue, asking the Pulaski County court to send the case to Phillips County. They called it the more convenient forum - the accident, the witnesses, and most parties were all there. The trial judge agreed, calling Phillips County the "better venue" while acknowledging that forum non conveniens - where a court declines to hear a case because another forum is better suited - does not apply between Arkansas counties. 

The Court of Appeals, in a unanimous opinion, reversed. When a plaintiff's venue choice is authorized by statute, the panel held, a court cannot second-guess it by deciding another county would be more convenient. That would let the judiciary override venue choices the legislature deliberately gave to plaintiffs. The court pointed to a 2010 Arkansas Supreme Court decision in a related Farm Bureau case establishing the same principle. 

The panel also confirmed jurisdiction, finding that an order transferring an entire declaratory-judgment action to another county is a final, appealable order. 

For claims teams and coverage counsel, the takeaway is concrete: an insurer's statutory right to choose where it files a coverage action carries real weight, and a parallel tort suit elsewhere is not enough to move the fight.