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Bell Constructors, Inc. v. Evergreen Caissons, Inc.
Citations: 236 A.D.2d 859; 654 N.Y.S.2d 80; 1997 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 1798
Court: Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York; February 6, 1997; New York; State Appellate Court
The order under appeal has been unanimously reversed, with costs awarded, the cross motion denied, and the complaint reinstated. The Supreme Court made an error in granting the defendant's cross motion to dismiss the complaint based on forum non conveniens. The plaintiff, a New York corporation, alleged that the defendant, a Colorado corporation, breached a July 1995 contract for work to be performed in Aurora, Colorado. The defendant claimed that defending the action in New York would cause significant economic hardship and loss of business time, asserting inconvenience due to the location of its representatives, witnesses, and records in Colorado. However, the contract included a forum selection clause stipulating that disputes would be governed by New York law and only enforced in New York courts. Such clauses are generally considered valid unless there is a strong justification to set them aside. To invalidate the clause, the defendant needed to demonstrate that enforcement would be unreasonable, unjust, or the result of fraud or overreaching, indicating that defending in New York would be prohibitively difficult. The defendant failed to provide sufficient evidence to support these claims. Therefore, the enforcement of the forum selection clause remains intact, allowing the case to proceed in New York.