ABSTRACT
The US Supreme Court has long held that a forum selection clause should not be enforced when a trial in the chosen forum would be ‘so gravely difficult and inconvenient’ that the plaintiff ‘will for all practical purposes be deprived of his day in court’. The financial status of the plaintiff is obviously a factor that is relevant to this inquiry. Large corporations can usually afford to litigate a case in a distant court. Individual plaintiffs frequently lack the resources to do so. Nevertheless, the lower federal courts have repeatedly held that the plaintiff’s financial circumstances are not relevant to the question of whether a forum selection clause should be enforced. The unsurprising result is a trail of abandoned lawsuits …
Coyle, John F, Financial Hardship and Forum Selection Clauses (July 27, 2023), 103 North Carolina Law Review (Forthcoming); UNC Legal Studies Research Paper No 4522749.
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