City of Albany v. CH2M Hill, Inc., No. 18-35283 (9th Cir. 2019)
Annotate this CaseThe Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's order granting the city's motion to remand this breach of contract case to state court based on a venue selection clause in its contract with defendant, an engineering firm incorporated in Florida. The panel held that the parties' venue selection agreement unambiguously precludes litigation in federal court. In this case, the contracts contained identical venue selection clauses that provide: "Venue for litigation shall be in Linn County, Oregon." The panel held that the venue selection clause precludes litigation in federal court because no federal courthouse is located in Linn County. Therefore, the only way to effectuate the parties' agreement is to limit venue for litigation to the state court in Linn County.
Court Description: Contracts/Remand Orders The panel affirmed the district court’s order granting the City of Albany’s motion to remand this case to state court based on a venue-selection clause in its contract with CH2M Hill, Inc., an engineering firm incorporated in Florida. The City of Albany brought an action for breach of contract against CH2M Hill Inc., in the Circuit Court for Linn County, Oregon. CH2M removed the case to federal court based on diversity of citizenship. The City moved to remand the case to state court, based on the venue-selection clause in the contract, which provided that the venue for litigation would be in Linn County, Oregon. The panel first noted that, while an order remanding a case to state court ordinarily is not reviewable, it was permitting review based on the parties’ venue-selection agreement. The panel held that an agreement limiting venue for litigation to a particular county unambiguously prohibits litigation in federal court when there is no federal courthouse located in the designated county. The panel therefore concluded that the venue-selection clause at issue here precluded litigation in federal court because no federal courthouse was located in Linn County. Accordingly, the only way to effectuate the parties’ agreement was to limit venue for litigation to the state court in Linn County.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.