Re: sendmail X license (fwd)
Walter Landry wrote:
>Rather, they would file in California court, because that is where
>California law is decided. The whole point of choice of law clauses
>is to force everything to happen in a particular place.
No; to my knowledge, this is simply wrong. California law can be decided in
federal court, or even New York court, and sometimes is. It is quite
possible to have a contract between two New York citizens which specifies
that it is to be interpreted under Virginia law (perhaps because one of the
contract signers was a Virginia citizen when the contract was originally
signed); it will be interpreted in a New York court (which has jurisdiction
and is an appropriate venue), but details of Virginia law may matter.
The point of choice of *venue* clauses is to force everything to happen in a
particular place. The point of choice of *law* clauses, in contrast, is to
make the meaning of a legal document more definite. For instance, if a
document talked about "community property", different states have different
definitions, and a choice of law clause would determine which definition
would be used.
Judges don't particularly like ruling on the meaning of laws of another state
or country, but they can and do do so.
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