§ 25-538.Action in another forum; stay or dismissal of action.

Reaching a defendant under Nebraska’s long-arm statute does not mean Nebraska is always the right place to try the case. Section 25-538 gives the court a release valve. When the court finds that substantial justice calls for the action to be heard somewhere else, it may stay the action or dismiss it, in whole or in part, on whatever conditions it finds just.

That flexibility matters because long-arm jurisdiction can technically reach a defendant with only a modest connection to Nebraska, even when the witnesses, evidence, and events at the heart of the dispute sit in another state. Rather than forcing a case to proceed in an inconvenient forum on the strength of jurisdiction alone, this section lets the court weigh whether justice is better served elsewhere, and to condition a stay or dismissal on terms — such as the defendant’s agreement to submit to jurisdiction in the other forum — that protect the plaintiff’s ability to pursue the claim there.