Procedural Perfection Is a Lot to Expect

Laboratory Specialists Int'l, Inc. v. Shimadzu Sci. Indus., No. G054056 (D4d3 Nov. 21, 2017)
 
The contract in this commercial dispute selected Maryland law and a county in Maryland for venue. Defendant first demurred on forum nonconveniens, and after the court noted that was improper, it filed a proper motion to dismiss or stay under Code of Civil Procedure § 410.30. The court granted the motion, and Plaintiff appeals.

Plaintiff mostly lays its appeal on a technical argument that Defendant forfeited its chance to raise forum non by raising the issue in a demurrer. It points to § 418.10(e)(3), which says you forfeit the right to raise FNC if you don’t make a motion “at the time of filing a demurrer.” But Defendant did, in fact, raise the convenience of the forum at the time it filed a demurrer, so there’s no forfeiture. The fact that it did so in the demurrer—instead of a separate motion filed at the same time—is sufficiently substantial compliance to avoid a forfeiture. That’s the case even though forum non is not an appropriate grounds to demur. It was well within the trial court’s discretion to treat the request in the demurrer as a separate request to stay or dismiss under § 410.30.

So far as the merits of the motion go, the court finds that the forum clause was mandatory and that it covered the claims filed by Plaintiff. Which means the only question is whether enforcing the clause is unfair or unreasonable. Which it wasn’t. Finally, Plaintiff claims that the trial court erred by dismissing the action instead of just staying it. But Plaintiff didn’t make that complaint to the trial court, so the Court of Appeal declines to reach it.

Affirmed.