Lewis v. Google Inc

Background

Bob Lewis sued Google, Inc. and YouTube, LLC over alleged discrimination by YouTube. He alleged that YouTube arbitrarily and maliciously demonetized his videos, limited the ability of users to discover his channel and videos, and deleted his channel, identified as “Misandry Today.” His second amended complaint also challenged various provisions of YouTube’s Terms of Service.

The defendants moved to transfer the case to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The Terms of Service included a forum-selection clause stating that claims or disputes arising in whole or in part from the service must be decided exclusively by a court of competent jurisdiction in Santa Clara County, California.

Legal Standard

Under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), a federal district court may transfer a civil case to another district where it could have been brought when doing so would serve the convenience of the parties and witnesses and the interests of justice. The Supreme Court has held that when a valid forum-selection clause applies, the clause receives controlling weight except in unusual cases.

Under that framework, the plaintiff’s choice of forum receives no weight, the plaintiff bears the burden of showing that transfer to the selected forum is unwarranted, and the court generally considers only public-interest factors. Those factors can include court congestion, the local interest in deciding localized controversies, and the interest in having a diversity case heard by a court familiar with the governing law.

Court’s Analysis

The court focused on whether the forum-selection clause itself was valid, rather than whether the Terms of Service as a whole were valid. Lewis argued that the Terms of Service allowed YouTube to modify them without notice and characterized that provision as creating “unfair surprise.”

The court explained that unfair surprise is one factor courts may consider when evaluating whether a contract is unconscionable, meaning so unfair or improperly imposed that it should not be enforced. But the court said Lewis did not explain how he was unfairly surprised by the forum-selection clause or how the other relevant unconscionability factors applied to that clause. The court therefore found that Lewis had not cast doubt on the clause’s validity.

Because the clause was valid, the court placed the burden on Lewis to show that public-interest factors weighed against transfer. The court said Lewis did not make arguments based on those factors or anything similar. Instead, he argued that the Terms of Service were invalid and that the defendants had not shown that transfer was justified under private-interest factors. The court concluded that those arguments did not satisfy his burden and that he had not shown this was an unusual case in which the forum-selection clause should not control.

Disposition

The court granted the defendants’ Motion to Transfer Venue. It ordered that the case be transferred to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California and directed the clerk to transmit the file. Unless the receiving court ordered otherwise, any unexpired deadlines were to remain in effect.

The order addressed venue only; it did not resolve the merits of Lewis’s underlying claims.