United States District Court, S.D. Indiana
SECTION
"L" (3)
ORDER AND REASONS
ELDON
E. FALLON UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Before
the Court is Defendant's motion to dismiss or transfer
venue. R. Doc. 5. Plaintiff opposes. R. Doc. 8. Having
considered the parties' briefs and the applicable law,
the Court now issues this Order and Reasons.
I.
BACKGROUND
This
case arises out of injuries allegedly sustained by Plaintiff
Jeremy Joost in the course of his employment with American
Commercial Barge Line LLC (“ACBL”). As an
engineer-in-training aboard the M/V MARK STAAB, Plaintiff
spent “a number of weeks” “repairing the
three barrel system that breaks down everything that goes
through the toilets on the vessel like a septic tank.”
R. Doc. 1 at 2. Plaintiff alleges that he was continuously
exposed to contaminated water during this time, and was
ultimately diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis - a
flesh-eating infection - as a result. He now brings claims of
unseaworthiness, maintenance and cure, and Jones Acct
negligence against ACBL.
II.
PRESENT MOTION
ACBL
moves the Court to dismiss this case without prejudice for
improper venue under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(3)
or, alternatively, to transfer this case to the United States
District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, New
Albany Division. After his alleged injury, Plaintiff applied
for paid leave under ACBL's Pay Continuation Plan (an
optional program that allows employees to receive short-term
pay continuance while on approved medical leave). He signed a
“Pay Continuance Form, ” which contains the
following forum selection clause:
I further agree that in the event I file a claim or lawsuit
against ACBL relating to the pay continuance program and/or
the incident giving rise to the illness and/or injury that is
the subject of my leave of absence from work, such suit will
only be filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern
District of Indiana, New Albany Division and I will make no
effort to have such lawsuit or claim transferred or moved to
any other court.
R. Doc. 5-2 at 4. Plaintiff's application was approved by
ACBL in March 2016, and he received pay continuance benefits
for a total of 26 weeks.
Accordingly,
ACBL asks the Court to dismiss or transfer this action to the
designated forum. Plaintiff seeks to avoid enforcement of the
forum selection clause, and argues that (1) it was obtained
as a result of overreaching, and (2) enforcement would
contravene a strong public policy of the forum state.
III.
LAW AND ANALYSIS
Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(3) authorizes dismissal
“only when venue is ‘wrong' or
‘improper' in the forum in which it was
brought.” Atlantic Marine Construction Company,
Inc. v. United States District Court for the Western District
of Texas, 571 U.S. 49. 55 (2013). “Whether venue
is ‘wrong' or ‘improper' depends
exclusively on whether the court in which the case was
brought satisfies the requirements of federal venue laws,
” and a forum selection clause has no bearing on this
analysis. Id.
Because
the forum selection clause does not render venue in this
Court “wrong” or “improper” under
Rule 12(b)(3), “the proper mechanism for enforcing [it]
is a motion to transfer venue under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a).
Weber v. PACTR XPP Technologies, AG, 811 F.3d 758,
766 (5th Cir. 2016) (citing Atlantic Marine). §
1404(a) allows a court to transfer a case to another district
“for the convenience of the parties and witnesses, and
in the interest of justice.” In the typical case, the
court “must determine whether there is an adequate
alternative forum and, if so, decide which forum is
best-suited to the litigation by considering a variety of
private- and public-interest factors and giving deference to
the plaintiff's choice of forum.” Barnett v.
DynCorp Int'l, L.L.C., 831 F.3d 296, 300 (5th Cir.
2016).[1]
A valid
and enforceable forum selection clause, however, alters the
§ 1404(a) analysis in two important ways: (1) “the
plaintiff's choice of forum merits no weight, ” and
(2) the court “must deem the private-interest factors
to weigh entirely in favor of the preselected forum”
and “may consider arguments about public-interest
factors only.” Atlantic Marine, 571 U.S. at
64. Because the public-interest factors “will rarely
defeat a transfer motion, the practical result is that
forum-selection clauses should control except in unusual
cases.” Id. Indeed, forum selection clauses
are “given controlling weight in all but the most
exceptional cases, ” Stewart Org. Inc. v. Ricoh
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