In Atlantic Marine Const. Co., Inc. v. U.S. Dist. Court for Western Dist. of Texas, 571 U. S. _ (2013), 2013 WL 6231157 (December 3, 2013), the Supreme Court not only reiterated that a valid forum selection clause must be given controlling weight, with rare exception – when considering a transfer motion under a 1404 analysis – but unamimously held that the analysis in those rare exceptions may give no weight to plaintiff’s choice of forum and may only consider counterveiling public-interest factors. “When parties agree to a forum-selection clause, they waive the right to challenge the preselected forum as inconvenient or less convenient for themselves or their witnesses, or for their pursuit of the litigation. A court accordingly must deem the private-interest factors to weigh entirely in favor of the preselected forum.”
Recognizing the applicability of Atlantic Marine to a forum selection clause in a patent license, yesterday the Supreme Court vacated and remanded a Federal Circuit decision refusing to enforce a forum-selection clause in an EDTX patent suit that, by the agreement, should have been filed in New York. See Broadcom Corporation v. USDC ED TX, et al., case number 12-1475.
Atlantic Marine settles a circuit split in authority. In the Third Circuit, guidelines for the applicability of a forum selection clause were established by Jumara v. State Farm Ins. Co., 55 F.3d 873, 883 (3d Cir.1995). Atlantic Marine, revises Jumara‘s guidance. It appears now that a forum selection clause is entitled to more than the “substantial consideration” – called for by Jumara – in a 1404 transfer analysis. It further appears that one may no longer rely on Jumara’s reasoning that a forum selection clause is but “one facet of the convenience-of-the-parties consideration.” Private-interest factors, as noted above, must now “weigh entirely in favor of the preselected forum.”
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