Florida Courts and Forum Selection Clauses
You may be surprised to find out that, unlike its sunny beaches and popular resorts, Florida courts may not be hospitable to hearing your clients’ claims and you may not have a sufficient basis to defeat a jurisdictional objection lodged by the adverse party — even where the adverse party agreed to designate Miami as the appropriate forum, waived its jurisdictional objections and agreed to designate Florida law as applicable.
We recently published an article for Law360 discussing Florida’s unpopular Hamilton v. Hamilton decision to uphold forum selection clauses in contracts, despite instances in which the parties stated their clear intent to litigate any issues in Florida.