Court Opinion

ID: 9664297
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:12:36.865446+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:04.469868
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Justice CARTER.
Because I believe the forum-selection clause is permissive and not mandatory, I *632dissent to the majority opinion. The clause states that “all actions or proceedings ... shall be governed by the law of Illinois and may, at the discretion and election of ADM, be litigated in a court ... within Illinois.” Does this language necessarily mean that all litigation between these parties was required to be conducted in Illinois? Or does this mean that Illinois “may” be selected by ADM as a place of proper jurisdiction?
The difficulty with the majority opinion is the attempt to explain that “may” really means “shall.” One entering this contract with full knowledge that the contract was entered in Texas, Ramsay was a Texas resident, all transactions would be made through the local office in Texas, the corporations were licensed to do business in Texas, would properly believe that, if litigation resulted from this contract, jurisdiction of the litigation would necessarily lie in Texas. Illinois appears to have no significant contacts other than ADM’s location. Further, one could logically believe that entering the contract in question gave ADM a right that it would not otherwise have — it could no longer argue that Illinois did not have jurisdiction in the event ADM elected to file suit there. Consequently, the clause was not meaningless. The fact that the parties agree that litigation between them may, if elected by ADM, be conducted in Illinois does not place the parties on notice that no other state has jurisdiction of their litigation.
I believe this case is similar to Southwest Intelecom, Inc. v. Hotel Networks Corp., 997 S.W.2d 322 (Tex.App.-Austin 1999, pet. denied), where the parties stipulated “to jurisdiction” in Minnesota. Just as the majority opinion states here, in Southwest Intelecom, Inc., the trial court interpreted the jurisdiction clause to provide for exclusive jurisdiction in Minnesota courts “because the provision would be meaningless ...” Id. at 326. But the Austin court held that interpreting the provision to mean that both parties agreed to jurisdiction and venue in Minnesota (but not exclusively) enabled the appellee to sue in its headquarters state without worrying about jurisdictional issues. Without the jurisdiction clause, it was doubtful that a Minnesota court would have been unable to exercise jurisdiction since that state had little contact.
I believe this clause is similar to that in Southwest Intelecom, Inc., and should be interpreted as providing permissive, not exclusive, jurisdiction in Illinois. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent to the majority opinion.