Facts
- Lauro Lines s.r.l. owned the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, which was hijacked by terrorists in the Mediterranean in October 1985.
- Passengers and estates of passengers filed damages actions in the Southern District of New York for personal injuries and wrongful death arising from the hijacking, including claims associated with the death of Leon Klinghoffer.
- Passenger tickets contained a forum-selection clause requiring suits related to the contract to be brought in Italy and purporting to waive suit elsewhere.
- Lauro Lines moved to dismiss based on the clause, asserting suit had to be filed in Naples, Italy.
- The district court denied dismissal, concluding the ticket did not provide reasonable notice that passengers were waiving a domestic forum.
Issues
- Whether an interlocutory order denying a motion to dismiss a damages action based on a contractual forum-selection clause is immediately appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 as a collateral order.
Decision
- The Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal of the attempted appeal for lack of appellate jurisdiction.
- An order denying dismissal based on a forum-selection clause is not a “final decision” under § 1291.
- The order does not qualify for immediate appeal under the collateral order doctrine.
- Although the order conclusively determined the forum-selection issue and was separate from the merits, it was not “effectively unreviewable” after final judgment.
- Post-judgment review can remedy the error by vacating any judgment and requiring refiling in the contractually selected forum, if the clause is ultimately held enforceable.
- Litigation expense and burden from proceeding in an undesired forum do not justify expanding interlocutory appellate review.
- A policy favoring enforcement of foreign forum-selection clauses concerns the merits of enforcement, not the appealability of the interlocutory order.
Legal Principles
- Under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, appellate jurisdiction generally extends only to district court decisions that end the litigation on the merits.
- The collateral order doctrine permits immediate appeal only for a small class of orders that (1) conclusively determine the disputed question, (2) resolve an important issue separate from the merits, and (3) are effectively unreviewable after final judgment.
- A contractual right to be sued in a particular forum differs from a right not to be sued at all (such as immunity); the former is ordinarily reviewable after final judgment and therefore does not satisfy the “effectively unreviewable” requirement.
- The collateral order doctrine is construed narrowly to avoid piecemeal appellate review.
Conclusion
The Court held that a district court’s interlocutory refusal to dismiss a damages action based on a contractual forum-selection clause is not immediately appealable under § 1291 because the asserted forum right can be adequately reviewed and remedied on appeal after final judgment.