Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, PROCEDURE—N.D. Ill.: Tech company employee who worked remotely in Illinois must litigate claims in Texas pursuant to forum selection clause, (Oct 21, 2025)

By Kathleen Kapusta, J.D.

A district court “must enforce a valid forum-selection clause governing a dispute ‘unless extraordinary circumstances unrelated to the convenience of the parties clearly disfavor a transfer’ or dismissal.”

Noting that neither the Seventh Circuit nor the Supreme Court have spoken on whether Title VII’s venue provision overrides a valid forum-selection clause, a federal court in Illinois declined the invitation of a former technology consulting company employee to hold that such clauses are void or unenforceable when applied to Title VII claims. Finding further that the employee, who worked remotely in Illinois for the Texas-based company, agreed to a valid, enforceable clause that encompassed her age, sex, and race discrimination claims and that designated state or federal courts in Dallas, Texas, as the exclusive forum for resolving the parties’ disputes, the court enforced the clause and transferred the case to the Northern District of Texas (Haywood v. ComTec Information Systems, No. 25 CV 7883 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 15, 2025)).

According to the employee, a ComTec Information Systems manager told her in September 2022 that the company wanted to bring her on with a client that was “on a timeline” so she needed to immediately sign an employment offer. The almost four-page offer letter contained multiple short paragraphs all in the same small font. After initialing various paragraphs, she DocuSigned her name to the last page, which contained a forum selection clause. She then began working remotely from Illinois as a Senior SAP project manager for the company.

Forum selection clause. Pursuant to the clause, the “laws of the State of Texas” governed the agreement and the parties consented to “the jurisdiction of Dallas County (Texas)” and designated it as the sole and exclusive jurisdiction for the resolution of “any disputes regarding this agreement or any other disputes which may arise between the parties.”

After her termination in January 2023, the employee sued ComTec in federal court in Illinois, alleging it discriminated and retaliated against her based on her age, sex, and race. ComTec then moved to dismiss based on forum non conveniens or, alternatively, to transfer the case to the Northern District of Texas.

Federal or Texas law. Addressing first whether Texas or federal law governs enforcement of the forum-selection clause, the court, agreeing with the employee, found that pursuant to the employment offer, Texas law governed. But because Texas has adopted the federal approach to interpretation, the court noted that cases interpreting forum-selection clauses under federal law were also persuasive.

Public policy. As to the validity of the clause, the employee argued that enforcing it would violate Illinois public policy because Illinois has an interest in having a controversy about its “resident’s employment decided at home” and “there is unfairness of burdening Texas citizens with jury duty in a case concerning discrimination against a non-resident.” Noting first that this suit involves a company that has its principal place of business in Texas, the court found unpersuasive the employee’s concerns about Illinois’s interest in a suit concerning its citizen or of Texas citizens being “burdened” with jury duty.

Noting further that Illinois generally favors forum-selection clauses and will only disregard the parties’ forum choice when a state statute or judicial decision expresses a strong public policy rejecting such clauses in a specific type of case, the court explained that it “is not enough that a plaintiff brings claims based on Illinois statutes, the plaintiff must point to an Illinois law or judicial decision that expresses a fundamental policy that the relevant claims be litigated within the state of Illinois,” which the employee failed to identify here.

Title VII claims. Nor was the court persuaded by her contention that forum-selection clauses are invalid or unenforceable as applied to Title VII claims. Title VII’s venue provision, the court observed, allows a plaintiff to bring suit “in any judicial district in the State in which the unlawful employment practice is alleged to have been committed, in the judicial district in which the employment records relevant to such practice are maintained and administered, or in the judicial district in which the aggrieved person would have worked but for the alleged unlawful employment practice.” Moreover, if the employer “is not found within any such district, such action may be brought within the judicial district in which” the employer “has his principal office.”

Observing that the general venue statute favors venue in the district where the employer has its principal office, the court pointed out some courts have found that Title VII reflects Congress’s desire to avoid inconvenience to plaintiffs. While neither the Seventh Circuit nor the Supreme Court has spoken on whether Title VII’s venue provision overrides a valid forum-selection clause, the Seventh Circuit, considering a similar venue provision in the ERISA context, held that ERISA’s venue provision, which, like Title VII, lists judicial districts where a plaintiff could bring suit, did not preclude enforcement of a forum-selection clause in an employment contract. The provision, said the court, which stated that plaintiffs may bring suit in the listed districts, was permissive and nothing precluded the parties from “contractually narrowing the options to one of the venues listed in the statute.”

Concluding that Title VII’s venue provision is also permissive, the court here observed that “adopting a bright line rule that forum-selection clauses do not apply to Title VII claims seems at odds” with the Supreme Court’s directive in Atlantic Marine that “forum-selection clauses should control except in unusual cases.”

Fraud. As to the employee’s contention that the clause was invalid because it was not freely negotiated—she argued that it was hidden in a complex four-page letter—the court pointed to the Seventh Circuit’s assertion that “it is not fraud to fail to tell a person orally what is in the written contract that he is being asked to sign.” Nor did the court find the placement of the clause in the first paragraph on the signature page or the size of the text, which could hardly be described as fine print, as suspicious. And while she claimed she was rushed into signing the agreement, the court noted that a week passed between the date ComTec called her about the employment offer and the date she began employment. “In any event,” said the court, “the entire contract is just four pages long and ‘a party who agrees to terms in writing without understanding or investigating those terms does so at his own peril.’”

Scope. Regarding the scope of the clause, the employee argued that because it stated that both “parties consent to the jurisdiction of Dallas County,” they agreed only that Dallas County had jurisdiction if a party chose to file suit there, not that Dallas County was the only place a party could file suit. Rejecting this assertion, the court pointed to the rest of the clause which states that Dallas County is the “sole and exclusive jurisdiction” for disputes between the parties.”

Also rejected was the employee’s assertion the forum-selection clause did not apply because her claims were based on federal discrimination statutes, not the employment offer. The clause, said the court, applies to both “disputes regarding [the employment offer]” and “any other disputes which may arise between the parties.” Moreover, the court observed, Texas courts have interpreted similar language broadly to include non-contractual claims such as those alleging employment discrimination.

State or federal court? Finally, the employee argued, the clause did not require litigation in a Dallas County, Texas state court, but instead allows litigation in any state or federal court in Dallas County. Here, the court found this distinction important because Atlantic Marine requires dismissal, rather than transfer, when a forum-selection clause designates a non-federal forum. As to whether the designation of “Dallas County (Texas)” could reasonably be interpreted as allowing jurisdiction in a federal court located in Dallas County, Texas, the court noted that it was unable to locate Texas cases addressing a similar forum-selection clause. Some federal courts, however, have found that forum-selection clauses designating the courts or jurisdiction “of” a particular county cannot include federal courts because, while federal courts may be “in” a particular county, they are not courts “of” that county. Other federal courts, on the other hand, have reached the opposite conclusion.

In one case of interest, said the court, a state court, applying Texas law in interpreting a forum-selection clause that specified that “[t]he Courts of Texas, U.S.A., shall have jurisdiction” over disputes governed by the agreement, held that jurisdiction was limited to state courts because “[f]ederal district courts may be in Texas, but they are not of Texas.” While this was similar to the clause at issue here, that clause selects the “jurisdiction of,” not the “courts of” Dallas County, observed the court, noting that “the wide disagreement among courts interpreting clauses very similar to the one present here leads to one conclusion: reasonable minds could interpret the forum-selection clause to include federal courts in Dallas County, Texas.”

Transfer. Finding no “extraordinary circumstances unrelated to the convenience of the parties” that “clearly” disfavors a transfer to the Northern District of Texas, the court denied ComTec’s motion to dismiss and granted its alternative request to transfer the case.

The case is No. 25 CV 7883.

Judge: Jenkins, L.

Attorneys: Ximen Januszyk (Esposito Law) for Cherry Haywood. Katherine Ann Rodosky (Schueler, Dallavo & Casieri) for ComTec Information Systems.

Companies: ComTec Information Systems

Cases: Procedure ContractClaims Discrimination Discharge IllinoisNews