Court Opinion

ID: 9845571
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:24:34.591785+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:14.255994
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE RUSSELL, with whom JUSTICE WHITING and JUSTICE LACY
join, concurring.
I concur in the result, but do not subscribe to all the reasoning contained in the majority opinion. I agree that traditional concepts of freedom of contract, in the absence of demonstrable unfairness, fraud, or unequal bargaining power, support the enforcement of forum selection clauses. Because the record here is devoid of evidence of fraud, unfairness, or overreaching, I would enforce the agreements as written. That holding, in my view, should end the case.
In agreements 2 and 5, the contracting parties agreed to litigate, exclusively in New York’s state or federal courts, any and all causes of action that might arise between themselves “whether or not arising under this Agreemenf (emphasis added). Therefore, it matters not whether Paul’s claims against Canon arise under one or more of the six agreements. If the forum selection clauses are operative according to their plain language, as all members of the Court agree that they are, then agreements 2 and 5 alone suffice to accomplish the result for which Canon contends.
*345Unfortunately, the majority opinion reaches that result by a labored effort to characterize the plaintiffs claims of defamation, civil and criminal conspiracy, and tortious interference with contractual relations as causes of action arising under the parties’ contracts. I think that reasoning to be untenable. It can hardly be argued that the parties, when entering into their agreements, contemplated that one of them would defame the business reputation of the other, telling customers that the injured party was about to go out of business, was approaching insolvency, or would not stand behind the products it sold. It is particularly unthinkable that Canon, having contractually bound itself to the plaintiff as a dealer, would tell customers that it intended to breach its own agreement by “dropping” the plaintiff. Each contracting' party is entitled to assume that the other intends to perform the contract in good faith. See 11 Williston on Contracts § 1300 (3rd ed. 1968).
A cause of action arising under a contract is, by definition, a cause ex contractu.
In both the civil and the common law, rights and causes of action are divided into two classes, —those arising ex contractu (from a contract), and those arising ex delicto (from a delict or tort). Where cause of action arises from breech (sic) of a promise set forth in contract, the action is “ex contractu”, but where it arises from a breech (sic) of duty growing out of contract, it is “ex delicto”.
Black’s Law Dictionary 508 (5th ed. 1979) (citations omitted). Indeed, Canon had a duty not to defame or slander Paul, but that duty was imposed by the law of torts. It did not grow out of the promises in the contracts. It would have existed if the parties had never contracted at all.
Under agreements 1, 3, 4, and 6, the parties only contracted to litigate ex contractu causes of action in New York. Tortious and criminal conduct gives rise to causes of action ex delicto, which arise from wrongs entirely outside the contracts. The conduct charged by the plaintiff against Canon would, if proved, constitute a series of torts quite independent of the contracts between the parties. In Virginia, it also would constitute criminal conduct. It strains reason to hold that such conduct “arose under” the contracts. I wish to disassociate myself from that portion of the ma*346jority opinion which so holds because of my concern for the unfortunate effect of such a holding upon future cases.
The bench and bar should be secure in the knowledge that it is possible to draft forum selection clauses as broad as those in agreements 2 and 5, which embrace all causes of action, but that it is also possible to draft such clauses more narrowly, embracing only causes of action arising under the contract itself, and that the courts will respect the distinction.