Earlier this fall, the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts transferred an employee’s declaratory judgment action to the Eastern District of Michigan pursuant to a forum-selection clause in a non-compete agreement over the employee’s argument that he had signed the agreement under duress because he was not told he would need to sign it until he had already spent the money and traveled all the way from India to the United States. The court also used the value of the employee’s annual salary, not just the damages the former employee was seeking to recover, to determine whether the minimum threshold for diversity jurisdiction had been satisfied, because his former employer was seeking to enforce his non-compete and keep him out of work. The case is Kurra v. Synergy Computer Solutions, Inc., No. 15-cv-13952-ADB (D. Mass.).
Continue Reading Federal Court Rejects Foreign Employee’s Attempt to Avoid Forum Selection Clause on Grounds He Signed Under Duress Upon Arriving in U.S.