Atlantic Marine Construction Co. v. US District Court for the Western District of Texas

The main issue in the Atlantic Marine Construction Co. v. United States District Court for the Western District of Texas case is whether a forum-selection clause can render statutory proper venue improper (Mann, 2013) . Prior to filing this case, the Atlantic Marine Construction Company had entered into an agreement with a company known as ‘Army Corps of Engineers.’ The contract involved building a child development center in Texas. Part of the agreement involved Atlantic Marine Construction Company subcontracting J-Crew Management Company, which was to supply labor and construction materials. Atlantic Marine and J-Crew included a forum selection clause in their agreement thus specifying the regions where the two companies would file suits in case of a breach of contract or a dispute. As specified in the clause, the two companies would only use two Virginian courts as possible venues. 

As indicated in the case, J-Crew accused Atlantic of breaching the contract by not honoring the terms of payment. Hence, J-Crew filed a case against Atlantic in a District Court in Texas. However, Atlantic countered the suit by reasoning that by filling a case in the Western District of Texas, J-Crew was going against the forum-selection clause, which had stipulated that the two companies were only allowed to file suits in two specified courts in Virginia (Mann, 2013) . Hence, Atlantic wanted the case filed by J-Crew dismissed. In this regard, the main question worth pondering about is the amount of weight that courts should accord forum selection clauses. On one extreme end of the spectrum, Atlantic argues that courts are obliged to enforce all forms of contracts as presented; and this includes the forum-selection clause. Contrastingly, J-crew contends that a forum selection clause, drafted between two entities, cannot prevent the entities from filing cases in other courts. The decision to be made in this case should be governed by the precedent set in Stewart Organization, Inc. v. Ricoh Corp., 487 U.S. 22 (1988) where it was determined that the federal law § 1404(a) should be considered when making decisions on whether to handover cases to a court other than the ones stipulated in the forum-selection clause. 

Reference 

Mann, R. (2013, December 4). Opinion analysis: Tough day for the Fifth Circuit . Retrieved from SCOTUSblog: https://www.scotusblog.com/2013/12/opinion-analysis-tough-day-for-the-fifth-circuit/