## Facts

- Compagno was a passenger aboard the S/S *Enchanted Seas* on a cruise departing from New Orleans with stops including Cozumel, Grand Cayman, and Jamaica.
- Compagno alleged he was injured while a passenger during the voyage.
- Compagno’s passenger ticket served as the passage contract between the parties.
- The ticket contained a forum-selection clause providing that all disputes “shall be litigated, if at all, before a court located in the State, City, and County of New York to the exclusion of the courts of any other country, states, city or county.”
- Compagno filed his personal-injury action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
- Commodore Cruise Line moved to dismiss (or, alternatively, transfer) based on the New York forum-selection clause.
- Compagno opposed enforcement of the clause.

## Issues

1. Whether the forum-selection clause in the cruise passenger ticket requiring suit in courts located in the State, City, and County of New York is enforceable against a passenger asserting a personal-injury claim filed in Louisiana.
2. If the clause is enforceable, whether the Louisiana federal action should be dismissed (or transferred) so the dispute proceeds in the contractually selected New York forum.

## Decision

- The court enforced the ticket’s mandatory forum-selection clause selecting New York.
- The court granted Commodore Cruise Line’s motion to enforce the contractual forum and declined to allow the case to proceed in the Eastern District of Louisiana.
- The court dismissed the Louisiana action so the claim could be pursued in the forum required by the passage contract.

## Legal Principles

- A passenger ticket is a maritime contract, and federal maritime law generally treats forum-selection clauses as presumptively valid.
- A forum-selection clause will be enforced unless the resisting party makes a strong showing that enforcement would be unreasonable or unjust, or that the clause resulted from fraud or overreaching.
- Mandatory, exclusive language (such as “shall be litigated, if at all” and “to the exclusion of” other courts) indicates the parties selected a single forum and supports enforcement.
- A ticket clause directing where “all disputes” must be litigated can apply to passenger tort claims arising from the voyage, not only contract-based disputes.
- When an exclusive forum-selection clause requires litigation in another forum, a federal court may dismiss an action filed in a nonselected forum to give effect to the parties’ agreement.

## Conclusion

In *Compagno v. Commodore Cruise Line*, the Eastern District of Louisiana treated the cruise ticket as a maritime passage contract and enforced its mandatory New York forum-selection clause, granting the cruise line’s motion and dismissing the Louisiana-filed personal-injury suit so the dispute would be litigated in the New York forum specified in the ticket.


Compagno v. Commodore Cruise Line, 1994 WL 462997 (1994)