Court Opinion

ID: 9641478
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:32:54.58446+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:37.758940
License: Public Domain

SWAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I should prefer to withhold decision to await action by the Supreme Court in Grand Trunk Western R. Co. v. Boyd, 321 Mich. 693, 33 N.W.2d 120, petition for certiorari pending. But as my Brothers wish to decide the case without delay I will state briefly my position. I agree with Judge HAND’S interpretation of section 5 but I disagree with his view that the contract restricting venue is invalid. At some time after the cause of action has accrued the plaintiff must elect the venue of his suit. Why he may not make such election by a contract fairly made with the defendant I am unable to see. Such a contract, like any other, may be impeached for fraud or mutual mistake, but unless so impeached it should be respected. Since a release of plaintiff’s right to damages is valid unless impeached, Callen v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 332 U.S. 625, 630, 68 S.Ct. 296, a fortiori a release of a mere venue privilege should be good, absent any charge of fraud or mistake in obtaining it.
On Petition for Rehearing.
L. HAND, Chief Judge.
Upon petition for rehearing the defendant asserts that it has been deprived of any *562opportunity to present the evidence which I held to be- necessary to make the contract valid. This position is not pertinent to the grounds of the decision of either of my brothers, and they do not feel called upon to answer it; I hold that it is not well taken. The defendant in its answer set up as a defence the plaintiff’s contract not to sue outside the State of Ohio, to which the plaintiff, by order of the court, filed a reply, which alleged that, when he executed “the instrument of May 10, 1946,” the defendant “fraudulently represented to him” that it would pay him $2000 in eight installments, if he - would execute eight “ ‘advancement of funds’ instruments”; that “the said instruments referred to were made and executed by the plaintiff under such circumstances that the execution was not the voluntary act of the plaintiff”; and that “by reason of all of the foregoing the said agreement * * * and all the eight instruments constituting said transaction are rendered void.” The defendant moved to have the validity of its defence that the contract was a bar decided in advance of, the trial, and this was granted. When the issue came on before a judge, the plaintiff moved to strike out the defence and the defendant put in evidence the contract, but nothing more. The judge thereupon struck out the defence.
As I said in my concurring opinion, I think that the contract was invalid unless the defendant affirmatively proved that it was executed after “the employee was fully advised of its “effect upon his rights.” It was part of the defendant’s case therefore, when the 'plaintiff moved to strike out its defence, to prove these facts, and it did not even attempt to do so. The reply was not necessary at all, and it must be confessed that it is not clear. Yet, vague as it was, it alleged that the “instruments” were not the “voluntary act” of the plaintiff, and by “instruments” it apparently included the contract. That would seem to have advised the defendant that the “circumstances” surrounding its “execution” made it invalid. Moreover, the defendant does not even now allege what alone would satisfy me: i. e., that the plaintiff had had the advice of someone who adequately informed him of the effect of the contract upon his rights. Certainly that person must be someone not in the defendant’s employ; and, indeed, I am inclined to say that he must be a lawyer, though I should not wish to make that an inflexible condition.
For these reasons I think that the petition should be denied, and my brother Qark joins in this disposition of it, though, of course, only for those reasons which he has already stated in his opinion.