{"id":650,"date":"2013-06-12T19:25:16","date_gmt":"2013-06-12T19:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bfvlaw.com\/northern-district-of-georgia-judge-frustrated-at-inadequacy-of-parties-briefing-on-enforceability-of-forum-selection-clause\/"},"modified":"2023-05-09T21:37:38","modified_gmt":"2023-05-09T21:37:38","slug":"northern-district-of-georgia-judge-frustrated-at-inadequacy-of-parties-briefing-on-enforceability-of-forum-selection-clause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bfvlaw.com\/northern-district-of-georgia-judge-frustrated-at-inadequacy-of-parties-briefing-on-enforceability-of-forum-selection-clause\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern District of Georgia Judge Frustrated at Inadequacy of Parties\u2019 Briefing on Enforceability of Forum Selection Clause"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Protz v. Bock &amp; Clark Corp.<\/em>, Civil Action No: 1:13-cv-1281-JEC, 2013 WL1898142 (N.D. Ga. May 7, 2013), involves the validity of a forum selection clause in an employment agreement containing restrictive covenants.\u00a0 Steven Protz was employed by Bock &amp; Clark.\u00a0 His employment agreement with Bock &amp; Clark contained a broad non-competition covenant.\u00a0 After Mr. Protz was terminated from Bock &amp; Clark and was offered an opportunity with another employer, Mr. Protz filed a lawsuit in the Fulton County Superior Court seeking a declaratory judgment that his non-competition covenant was unenforceable.<\/p>\n<p>Bock &amp; Clark removed the action to federal court.\u00a0 Bock &amp; Clark then filed a motion to dismiss based on a forum selection clause in Mr. Protz\u2019s employment agreement which mandated that any legal action concerning the agreement be brought in the Summit County, Ohio Court of County Pleas.\u00a0 The employment agreement also contained an Ohio choice of law provision.<\/p>\n<p>In responding to Bock &amp; Clark\u2019s motion to dismiss, Mr. Protz primarily relied on Georgia cases holding that Georgia courts will disregard choice of law provisions in agreements containing over broad non-competition covenants.\u00a0 Therefore, according to Mr. Protz, because a Georgia court would not enforce the restrictive covenants, it would contravene Georgia public policy to force him to litigate the action in Ohio.\u00a0 Bock &amp; Clark countered by arguing that Mr. Protz had failed to show that the Ohio court would likely ignore Georgia law in determining whether to enforce the restrictive covenants.<\/p>\n<p>The Court felt that the parties\u2019 briefing on the issue of the enforceability of the forum selection clause was inadequate, stating that the issues \u201cwill require more briefing and analysis than plaintiff has thus far presented in his limited brief on this topic.\u201d\u00a0 The Court explained the need for further briefing and why Mr. Protz\u2019s focus on the enforceability of the <em>choice of law provision<\/em> was not determinative of the validity of the <em>forum selection clause<\/em>.\u00a0 The Court therefore ordered the parties to provide further briefing on issues such as Ohio\u2019s conflict of law rules and how an Ohio state court would determine which state\u2019s substantive law should apply (i.e., would an Ohio court give deference to the Ohio choice of law provision or would it give deference to Georgia law and its former public policy disfavoring unreasonable covenants in employment contracts?).\u00a0 The Court further guided the parties on the additional issues to address, stating that Mr. Protz should attempt to identify cases that will support his argument that Ohio would ignore the Georgia law disfavoring restrictive covenants and Bock and Clark should \u201cexplore the area to support its argument that Ohio would defer to Georgia law in this area.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Protz <\/em>thus demonstrates that Georgia state courts and federal courts analyze the enforceability of forum selection clauses in employment agreements containing restrictive covenants somewhat differently.\u00a0 <em>Compare Crump Ins. Servs. v. All Risks, Ltd.<\/em>, 315 Ga. App. 490, 727 S.E.2d 131 (2012) (enforcing forum selection clause where parties had not demonstrated that a Maryland court would enforce the covenants).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Protz v. Bock &amp; Clark Corp., Civil Action No: 1:13-cv-1281-JEC, 2013 WL1898142 (N.D. Ga. May 7, 2013), involves the validity of a forum selection clause in an employment agreement containing restrictive covenants.\u00a0 Steven Protz was employed by Bock &amp; Clark.\u00a0 His employment agreement with Bock &amp; Clark contained a broad non-competition covenant.\u00a0 After Mr. Protz [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":14837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_mo_disable_npp":"no","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9],"tags":[25,16],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Northern District of Georgia Judge Frustrated at Inadequacy of Parties\u2019 Briefing on Enforceability of Forum Selection Clause - Berman Fink Van Horn P.C.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bfvlaw.com\/northern-district-of-georgia-judge-frustrated-at-inadequacy-of-parties-briefing-on-enforceability-of-forum-selection-clause\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Northern District of Georgia Judge Frustrated at Inadequacy of Parties\u2019 Briefing on Enforceability of Forum Selection Clause - Berman Fink Van Horn P.C.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Protz v. Bock &amp; Clark Corp., Civil Action No: 1:13-cv-1281-JEC, 2013 WL1898142 (N.D. Ga. 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