Court Opinion

ID: 9780425
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 01:57:00.220845+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:04.702661
License: Public Domain

MURDOCK, Justice
(concurring specially).
I write specially to comment on the argument by the plaintiffs (the Alabama parties) that the Textron defendants (the foreign parties) waived their rights under the forum-selection clauses because the original detinue action filed in federal district court in Alabama “encompassed the entirety of the parties’ dispute.” The main opinion rejects this argument based on the rationale that the action filed in the federal district court in Alabama was limited to a detinue claim and did not encompass the entirety of the parties’ dispute. I agree that the argument of the Alabama parties can be rejected based on this rationale.
Even if the detinue action had encompassed the entirety of the parties’ dispute, however, I would not be inclined to the view that any rights under the fonim-selection clauses had been waived under the circumstances presented in this case. I note that the Textron defendants voluntarily dismissed the Alabama detinue action soon after they filed it and that there was no reliance by the Alabama parties on the fact that the detinue action had been filed in Alabama. (Also, I do not believe that the filing of a counterclaim by the Alabama parties in the detinue action, even if it had occurred, could have been deemed a basis for a waiver by the Tex-tron defendants.)
Again, however, the filing of an action in Alabama “encompassing] the entirety of the parties’ dispute” is not a circumstance here presented, and I do not read the holding of the main opinion as extending to the effect of such a circumstance had it been presented. I therefore concur fully in the main opinion.