ATLANTIC MARINE CONSTRUCTION COMPANY, INC. v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR T

Question

ATLANTIC MARINE CONSTRUCTION COMPANY, INC. v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS et al.

UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT 134 S. CT. 568 (2013)

Petitioner Atlantic Marine Company was a contractor located in Virginia. It entered into a subcontract with J-Crew Management, Inc., a Texas corporation, that contained a forum-selection clause requiring suit in Virginia. The subcontractor sued the petitioner in the Western District of Texas. The construction company filed a motion to dismiss the case or to transfer it to the District Court in Virginia. The motion was denied by the District Court. Defendants then filed a motion with the Court of Appeals for a Writ of Mandamus (an order telling the lower court to do its job, which in this case meant either transferring the case or dismissing it). The Court of Appeals denied defendants’ motion, and they appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.Page 49

Justice Alito

The question in this case concerns the procedure available for a defendant in a civil case who seeks to enforce a forum-selection clause.… We reject petitioner’s argument that such a clause may be enforced by a motion to dismiss…. Instead, a forum-selection clause may be enforced by a motion to transfer under §1404(a) , which provides that “[f ]or the convenience of parties and witnesses, in the interest of justice, a district court may transfer any civil action to any other district or division where it might have been brought or to any district or division to which all parties have consented.” When a defendant files such a motion, we conclude, a district court should transfer the case unless extraordinary circumstances unrelated to the convenience of the parties clearly disfavor a transfer. In the present case, both the District Court and the Court of Appeals misunderstood the standards to be applied in adjudicating a §1404(a) motion in a case involving a forum-selection clause, and we therefore reverse the decision below….

Although a forum-selection clause does not render venue in a court “wrong” or “improper”…, the clause may be enforced through a motion to transfer under §1404(a). That provision states that “[f ]or the convenience of parties and witnesses, in the interest of justice, a district court may transfer any civil action to any other district or division where it might have been brought or to any district or division to which all parties have consented.” …§1404(a) does not condition transfer on the initial forum’s being “wrong.” And it permits transfer to any district where venue is also proper (i.e., “where [the case] might have been brought”) or to any other district to which the parties have agreed by contract or stipulation….

… the appropriate way to enforce a forum-selection clause pointing to a state or foreign forum is through the doctrine of forum non conveniens. Section 1404(a) is merely a codification of the doctrine of forum non conveniens for the subset of cases in which the transferee forum is within the federal court system; in such cases, Congress has replaced the traditional remedy of outright dismissal with transfer.

… When the parties have agreed to a valid forum-selection clause, a district court should ordinarily transfer the case to the forum specified in that clause. Only under extraordinary circumstances unrelated to the convenience of the parties should a §1404(a) motion be denied. And no such exceptional factors appear to be present in this case.

We REVERSE the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Although no public-interest factors that might support the denial of Atlantic Marine’s motion to transfer are apparent on the record before us, we remand the case for the courts below to decide that question.

Question 1. Review the Atlantic Marine Construction Company case in and answer the critical thinking question at the end of the case.

What is the single fact that has the greatest impact on this decision? What is the logic of relying on this fact to such a large extent?

Explanation / Answer

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Answer-

What is the single fact that has the greatest impact on this decision? What is the logic of relying on this fact to such a large extent?

Answer- the critical single fact, which has the greatest impact on the decision has been- presence of any extraordinary or exceptional case which can promote the court to order against the forum of selection scenario as is present in the case.

This particular as observed by the Supreme court is important because is important because in the prior two judgment the Petitioner Atlantic Marine Company wanted to contest in the court other than the mentioned one the forum selection criteria and the parties did not present any exceptional scenario which will demand the case to be contested in the court at Virginia. Hence the court can order for a different court. But the previous courts ignored this particular fact. They rejected the petition without having considering or inquiring any presence of any extraordinary factor that may support their judgment.

The fact that Section 1404 clearly states that the case may be transferred to any other court if the parties agree to it and their no exceptional scenario being presented by the parties as an objection to the transfer of the case.

Hence when such a scenario is codified in the law it becomes imperative upon the courts to follow the same.

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