Clear C2 Inc v. Verizon Sourcing LLC
- 1:25-cv-05308
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Clear C2 v. Verizon Sourcing, the court transferred the case to New York and denied Verizon’s dismissal motion without prejudice.
Clear C2, Inc. and Verizon Sourcing LLC. The case was transferred from the Northern District of Texas to the Southern District of New York, and Verizon may refile its motion to dismiss there.
What happened
Clear C2, Inc. sued Verizon Sourcing LLC in a contract dispute. The contract required lawsuits between the parties to be brought in the Southern District of New York or the corresponding state court. Clear C2 did not dispute that the clause was mandatory and enforceable, but argued that New York would be seriously inconvenient.
The court said Clear C2 had given up its ability to choose the forum and therefore considered only public interests, not the parties’ private convenience. It concluded that the presence of witnesses and contract work in Texas did not create the extraordinary circumstances needed to disregard the agreed forum.
The court granted Verizon’s motion to transfer the case to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Judge identification is unclear in the provided opinion text; the court also denied Verizon’s motion to dismiss without prejudice, allowing Verizon to file that motion again in the receiving court.
The detailed version
- Clear C2 Inc v. Verizon Sourcing LLC · No. 1:25-cv-05308
- June 4, 2025
Background
Clear C2, Inc. brought a breach-of-contract case against Verizon Sourcing LLC. The contract contained a forum-selection clause requiring a suit arising from the agreement to be brought in the Southern District of New York or the corresponding New York state court.
Verizon moved to transfer the case under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a). Verizon also moved to dismiss. Clear C2 acknowledged that the case was a breach-of-contract case, did not dispute that the contract contained a mandatory forum-selection clause, and conceded that the clause was enforceable. Clear C2 opposed transfer only because it considered litigation in New York gravely inconvenient. It pointed to the location of the parties’ key witnesses and the fact that the contract work at issue occurred in Texas.
Court’s reasoning
The court explained that when parties agree to a valid forum-selection clause, a federal court ordinarily should transfer the case to the selected forum. The party opposing enforcement bears a heavy burden of showing that enforcement would be unreasonable under the circumstances.
Because Clear C2 had agreed to the forum-selection clause, the court did not consider Clear C2’s private-interest arguments about litigating in Texas. The court considered public interests instead. It rejected Clear C2’s argument that local interest in having Texas-related issues decided in Texas overcame the presumption favoring the chosen forum. The court concluded that Clear C2 had not shown extraordinary circumstances justifying disregard of the clause.
Disposition
The court granted Verizon Sourcing LLC’s motion to transfer venue and transferred the case to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The court also denied without prejudice Verizon’s motion to dismiss. The opinion states that Verizon may refile its dismissal motion in the receiving court.
The judge’s signature in the provided text is not clear enough to identify confidently, so this summary refers to the judge as “the court.”
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.