Summary
The defendant's general venue serves as the starting point, while other jurisdictions prescribed by law are examined separately.
1.1The Standard by Which the Path Opens
One must compare in detail the portions withdrawn or adjudicated in the preceding action against the demands of the later action. The starting point of this stage is that the opposing party cannot be brought before that court merely because it is a convenient place. In the court of which place is a lawsuit commenced, and by what standard must that choice be measured so that the channel of this remedy opens? Choosing a place is a question of where to set the beginning of the procedure, and the plaintiff's circumstances alone do not support that choice. This question becomes clear only when jurisdiction is sought in the grounds prescribed by law.
Article 2 of the Civil Procedure Act begins, as the opening text for determining jurisdiction, with the words "A lawsuit shall be under the jurisdiction of the court of the place where the defendant's general forum is located." In this text the subject is the defendant, the relevant act is the filing of the lawsuit, and the condition is that the defendant's general forum lies within the territorial jurisdiction of that court. Here, general forum means the general place of jurisdiction determined on the basis of the defendant. This text does not absorb every case in which the law separately provides other grounds of jurisdiction; accordingly, the defendant's general forum is taken as the starting point, while other jurisdictions prescribed by law are examined separately.
The conclusion of this section, tied to that text, is that the entrance to this remedy opens when the grounds of jurisdiction stand. The channel of this remedy opens where the chosen court has jurisdiction, or where a violation of jurisdiction has been corrected by a lawful transfer. This determination requires a distinction between the establishment of jurisdiction and the content of the claim specified in the complaint. The former is a question of which court may take charge of the case; the latter is a question of what is to be contested before that court. If the two stages are mixed, a mistaken premise arises that the existence of jurisdiction and the specificity of the claim can substitute for one another.
The fact that a defendant-centered place may make the victim's access difficult is the practical inconvenience this standard creates. When the plaintiff must travel to a distant court, and evidence or witnesses do not gather at that place, the burden of cost and time falls on the plaintiff all the same. Even so, the plaintiff's convenience cannot be substituted for the legal grounds of jurisdiction. Convenience is merely a circumstance handled within institutions such as the transfer or consolidation of cases, and cannot itself become a reason that creates jurisdiction. While acknowledging the difficulty of access pointed out by the counterarguments, the conclusion that that inconvenience does not replace the legal grounds of jurisdiction is maintained.
Plaintiff A filed a suit in a place other than the location of Defendant B, and cited the jurisdiction clause of the contract as the ground. The facts confirmed in this scene are only that the place where the suit was filed differs from the location of Defendant B, and that Plaintiff A invoked the jurisdiction clause of the contract as the ground for that choice. Where Defendant B's general forum lies, and in what scope and manner the jurisdiction wording of the contract was drafted, the scene does not settle. Therefore, on this scene alone, one cannot determine whether contractual jurisdiction is established, or whether that clause has an effect exceeding the statutory standard concerning the defendant's general forum. If exclusive jurisdiction were confirmed, the conclusion on jurisdiction fixed on convenience and agreement alone would change; but since that premise is not confirmed in the present scene, this item remains undetermined.
The conclusion this section permits is narrow. Where the chosen court has jurisdiction, or where a violation of jurisdiction has been corrected by a lawful transfer, one may say that the entrance to this remedy opens if the required performance, parties, and conditions are specified in the prayer for relief and the right asserted in the chosen action can be defended. This is as far as it goes. This section does not reach the conclusions that jurisdiction arises merely from the circumstance of a convenient place, that one can assert categorically that a trial on the merits will be had before that court merely because the contract contains a jurisdiction wording, or that one fills the unconfirmed location and the scope of the agreement with conjecture.
1.2The Conditions That Block Relief
The opposing party cannot be brought before that court merely because it is a convenient place. In the court of which place is a lawsuit commenced? Along with this question there stands the question of what the conditions are for a lawsuit commenced there to advance to the stage at which it can actually receive a trial on the merits before that court. In this scene, jurisdiction does not arise before the court chosen by A merely because that court is a convenient place for facing B.
The starting point of this problem is the defendant's general forum. Article 2 of the Civil Procedure Act provides as follows: "A lawsuit shall be under the jurisdiction of the court of the place where the defendant's general forum is located." This text takes the defendant as the subject standard for determining jurisdiction, and designates as the court of jurisdiction the court of the place determined by that standard. This Article presents only the starting point of jurisdiction, and does not substitute for other jurisdictions separately prescribed by law.
Along with this starting point, the determination whether the chosen court has jurisdiction must stand as a separate stage. If there is jurisdiction, the proceedings advance to the examination of that court; if jurisdiction is violated, the same channel is maintained only where the violation has been corrected by a lawful transfer. The reason for dividing these two cases is that the convenience of the place brought forward by the plaintiff is not a ground that creates jurisdiction. The moment one assumes that a trial on the merits can be had before that court without the legal grounds of jurisdiction having been confirmed, the channel of relief closes.
The fact that a defendant-centered place may make the victim's access difficult is a strong counterargument to this conclusion. If the plaintiff must file suit at a distant court, the burden of time and cost grows, and that burden may bar substantive access to relief. Without erasing the inconvenience pointed out by the counterargument, one nevertheless cannot conclude that a trial on the merits can be had before that court where the requirements for determining jurisdiction are not met.
The facts that can be confirmed in this scene are that A filed suit in a place other than B's location, and cited the jurisdiction clause of the contract as the ground. This fact alone does not establish whether the court chosen by A has jurisdiction, whether the scope of the jurisdiction clause reaches this dispute, or where B's location is. The complaint, the materials on the location, the jurisdiction agreement document, the ground of exclusive jurisdiction, and the content of the transfer decision have not been confirmed. If exclusive jurisdiction were confirmed, the conclusion on jurisdiction fixed on convenience and agreement alone would change.
The conclusion this section permits is that one may advance to the examination of that court only where the legal grounds of jurisdiction are confirmed, or where a violation of jurisdiction has been corrected by a lawful transfer. This section does not permit fixing jurisdiction merely on the circumstance of a convenient place, nor regarding a trial on the merits before that court as available where jurisdiction is lacking. Conversely, circumstances in which the scope of the jurisdiction agreement or the defendant's location is unconfirmed remain undetermined.
1.3The Boundary That Remains When There Is No Data
It is precisely from this vantage that the question is posed: at which place's court is a lawsuit commenced? In this scene, the jurisdiction clause of the contract was presented as the ground of a jurisdiction agreement, but the scope it covers remains unconfirmed. Likewise, the location of Defendant B has not yet been specified. What it means to fix jurisdiction while these two facts remain unconfirmed must be examined.
The statutory provision corresponding to this question contains the following wording. Article 2 of the Civil Procedure Act provides that "A lawsuit shall be under the jurisdiction of the court of the place where the defendant's general forum is located" (Article 2 of the Civil Procedure Act). The subject this text indicates is not the person who filed the suit but the defendant, and the standard is the place known as the defendant's general forum. That is, this Article does not take the plaintiff's choice or convenience as the ground of jurisdiction, but sets as the starting point the place where the defendant is generally to be tried. This text does not, however, exclude other jurisdictions, so other jurisdictions prescribed by law must be examined separately.
Connecting this text with the conclusion of this section yields the following distinction. Taking the defendant's general forum as the starting point while examining other jurisdictions prescribed by law separately exists so that the starting point and the matters to be examined separately are not treated as the same. Where the scope of the jurisdiction agreement or the defendant's location is unconfirmed, that matter is not something incapable of determination; rather, the materials for determination have not yet been specified. Herein lies the reason for calling the former an impossibility and the latter undetermined. That is, provisionally withholding judgment because materials are unconfirmed, and declaring that no means whatever can yield a judgment, stand at different stages. This distinction is a qualification needed in fixing the character of the state in which jurisdiction cannot be determined.
The counterargument this distinction targets is clear: that a defendant-centered place may make the victim's access difficult. If the victim must go to a court at a far distance, substantive inconvenience attends both defense and attack, and the result may be that the victim cannot approach the court. A defendant-centered place that makes the victim's access difficult is itself a loss, and this loss appears to be a price paid for the defendant's convenience. Even so, the answer set by this section remains. That is, the circumstance of the victim's difficulty of access may not be transcribed into jurisdiction without a statutory ground. Without erasing the disadvantage pointed out by the counterargument, the manner of taking the plaintiff's convenience as the ground of jurisdiction is excluded.
In this scene, only two facts bear on this question: the fact that Plaintiff A filed suit in a place other than the location of Defendant B, and the fact that A cited the jurisdiction clause of the contract as its ground. Contrasted with the foregoing conditions, the jurisdiction clause of the contract may correspond to the record of determination known as a jurisdiction agreement document, but its scope has not been confirmed. The location of Defendant B likewise remains unconfirmed material. Therefore, on this scene alone, one cannot assert whether the scope of the jurisdiction agreement and the defendant's location are matters not yet specified or matters already confirmed. What cannot be fixed by this scene remains undetermined.
The conclusion this section permits is narrow: taking the defendant's general forum as the starting point, examining other jurisdictions prescribed by law separately, and leaving matters whose confirmation is lacking—such as the scope of the jurisdiction agreement or the defendant's location—undetermined, distinguished from impossibility. The conclusions this section does not permit are substituting the plaintiff's convenience for the legal grounds of jurisdiction, and moving unconfirmed material directly into the category of incapacity to determine.
1.4The Records Needed for Determination
Accepting the premise that the portions withdrawn or adjudicated in the preceding action must be compared in detail with the demands of the later action, this stage separately asks, on the basis of the complaint and the jurisdiction materials alone, before which court a suit may be commenced.
The first criterion for determining the place of the court before which a suit is to be filed is found in the wording of the jurisdiction statute. Article 2 of the Civil Procedure Act provides: "A lawsuit shall be under the jurisdiction of the court of the place where the defendant's general forum is located." In this text, the subject taken as the starting point is the defendant who is made a party to the suit; the act to be determined is the existence or nonexistence of that defendant's general forum; and the condition is the single determination whether the court of that place has jurisdiction. This paragraph does not address other issues.
In accordance with this text, the defendant's general forum is taken as the starting point, while other jurisdictions prescribed by law are examined separately. The reason the determination of the starting point must be distinguished from the determination of other jurisdictions is that the former designates a place by the standard of the defendant, while the latter is a stage that examines grounds set apart from that standard. The stage determination is made solely on the materials recorded in the complaint, the location materials, the jurisdiction agreement document, the ground of exclusive jurisdiction, and the transfer decision, and does not fill absent records with presumptions.
A defendant-centered place may make the victim's access difficult. If the defendant's location is far from where the victim resides or where the materials are gathered, the inconvenience and cost borne by the victim in seeking the court remain as they are. The disadvantageous point that the convenience of transfer may infringe upon the opposing party's choice of the place of defense and upon exclusive jurisdiction is set out alongside. The circumstance of difficult access is left, in the place where the existence or absence of the grounds of jurisdiction is settled, as a circumstance alone, and does not alter the determination on the recorded materials.
In the scene where Plaintiff A filed suit in a place other than the location of Defendant B and cited the jurisdiction clause of the contract as the ground, the facts relevant to this question are that suit was filed before a court other than the place of location, and that the jurisdiction clause of the contract was invoked. Contrasting these with the foregoing conditions, the location materials concerning Defendant B's general forum and the scope indicated by the jurisdiction clause of the contract correspond respectively to the individual record items. If exclusive jurisdiction is confirmed, it changes the conclusion on jurisdiction fixed on convenience and agreement alone. Where the scope of the jurisdiction agreement or the defendant's location is unconfirmed, the stage determination is left undetermined.
The conclusion this section permits is the stage determination, within the scope in which the prescribed records are complete, that the chosen court has jurisdiction or that a violation of jurisdiction has been corrected by a lawful transfer. What it does not permit is a conclusion that assumes a trial on the merits can be had before that court although the chosen court lacks jurisdiction, and a conclusion that takes the plaintiff's convenience alone as the legal ground of jurisdiction.
1.5Circumstances That Change the Decision
The conclusion of the preceding section is summarized as the result of asking, at the earlier stage, in which place's court an action is to be commenced. The question, then, is what overturns that determination once the starting point has been fixed. On the premise that the portions withdrawn or adjudicated in the preceding action must be compared in detail with the demands of the subsequent action, one must ask what change disturbs the conclusion once jurisdiction has been determined. This question begins from the point that the convenience of choosing a place and the legal grounds justifying that choice are distinct issues.
The statutory language corresponding to this question is "The court of the place where the defendant's general forum is located shall have jurisdiction over an action." (Article 2 of the Civil Procedure Act). In determining which court may have jurisdiction, this language places its starting point in the defendant. The party to which the language refers is the defendant; the standard is the place constituting the defendant's general forum; and the consequence drawn is the declaration that the court of that place shall have jurisdiction. General forum here means the place of general jurisdiction determined with reference to the defendant. What this Article determines is this starting point alone; where the law designates another place as the forum, that case falls outside the scope of this language.
The reason for distinguishing the judgment that takes this language as its starting point from the judgment that goes beyond that starting point is that the former determines where to begin and the latter determines whether that beginning will be maintained. The former is a step that ends upon ascertaining the fact of the defendant's general forum; the latter is a separate step that asks whether another jurisdiction prescribed by law, namely exclusive jurisdiction, has been ascertained. If the two steps were merged, the confirmation of the starting point would become the confirmation of final jurisdiction, and the purpose of the law in designating a particular place would vanish. Accordingly, the defendant's general forum is taken as the starting point, while another jurisdiction prescribed by law is examined separately. This distinction is the criterion of judgment for this section, and no requirements or exceptions are added to it.
Once this distinction is drawn, the criticism most forcefully aimed at it is that access by victims becomes difficult. If a victim must travel to where the defendant is located, the burden of travel and the disparity in information fall on the plaintiff rather than on the defending party. If the party that had weaker bargaining power at the time of contracting must conform to the other party even as to the place of filing suit, the jurisdiction rule in substance pushes the victim's remedy far away. This loss must not be erased. Convenience may be a circumstance to be considered, but it is not a ground for determining jurisdiction; the moment convenience is substituted for that ground, the result is that the party invoking convenience creates jurisdiction anew.
The fact confirmed in the synthetic scene is that Plaintiff A filed suit in a place other than the location of Defendant B and relied on the jurisdiction clause of the contract. This fact alone does not determine where Defendant B's general forum is located, what range of courts the jurisdiction clause of the contract designates, or whether that clause contains grounds corresponding to exclusive jurisdiction. Where the scope of the jurisdiction agreement or the defendant's location is unconfirmed, the effectiveness determination in this section remains undetermined. If a change amounting to exclusive jurisdiction is confirmed, the existing blocking and effectiveness determinations are discarded and the matter is adjudicated anew from the stage. Matters that cannot be adjudicated on the scene alone are left undetermined.
The conclusion permitted in this section is that the defendant's general forum is taken as the starting point, another jurisdiction prescribed by law is confirmed separately, and, where such confirmation exists, the existing conclusion is changed. What is not permitted is to take as the ground of jurisdiction the circumstance of a convenient place or the plaintiff's convenience as such; included here is also the premise that one may receive a trial on the merits before a court that lacks jurisdiction. If exclusive jurisdiction is confirmed, the existing blocking and effectiveness determinations are discarded and the matter is adjudicated anew from the stage; the records here are the complaint, the location materials, the jurisdiction agreement, the grounds of exclusive jurisdiction, and the transfer decision.
1.6The Strongest Counterargument and the Answer
Since the preceding stage has confirmed the starting point of the place where an action is to be commenced, the question now is how far the circumstance that a defendant-centered place may make access difficult for the victim can shake that starting point. In this scene, in which court the action may be filed remains a matter to be determined first as a procedural question. Jurisdiction is the criterion determining which court has the power and duty to hear the case, and whether the hearing on the merits begins in that court is examined separately from the jurisdictional determination.
The language corresponding to this question sets out the starting point of jurisdiction in a single sentence. Article 2 of the Civil Procedure Act declares that "The court of the place where the defendant's general forum is located shall have jurisdiction over an action." (Article 2 of the Civil Procedure Act). In this language, the action denotes the assertion of the claim brought by the plaintiff, the defendant denotes the position of defending in response to that action, and general forum means the place of general jurisdiction determined with reference to the defendant. That is, the place first opened by the law is not a place of convenience but a place determined with reference to the defendant, and other places are not determined by this Article alone. This is why the grounds of another jurisdiction prescribed by law must be examined separately.
This language and the preceding conclusion are not detached from each other. The starting point prescribed by Article 2 is defendant-centered, and the conclusion of this section is that the plaintiff's convenience cannot take the place of that starting point; the two stages of judgment thus point in the same direction. These two matters are nonetheless examined separately. One is which place the law designates as the court of jurisdiction; the other is whether the parties find that place inconvenient. The latter cannot add to or erase the grounds of the former. If the plaintiff's convenience is substituted for the legal ground of jurisdiction, the place prescribed by the law cannot be followed.
This counterargument targets loss and inconvenience concretely. If a victim must travel to a distant court before being able to present a defense, the time and effort required to receive a trial increase greatly, and there remains room for those for whom access is difficult to abandon their defense in fact. This inconvenience remains unerased. So long as jurisdiction is a criterion following the place prescribed by law, the difficulty of victim access is not a circumstance that changes the ground of jurisdiction, but remains a matter to be dealt with at the stage of another jurisdiction prescribed by law or a lawful transfer.
What is to be confirmed when jurisdiction is determined in this scene is limited. The complaint, the location materials, the jurisdiction agreement, the grounds of exclusive jurisdiction, and the transfer decision are the objects of confirmation. The determination at that stage stands where the chosen court has jurisdiction or where a jurisdictional violation is corrected by a lawful transfer; it does not stand if, while the chosen court lacks jurisdiction, it is premised that a trial on the merits may be received in that court. Since the range of the jurisdiction clause of the contract and the location of Defendant B remain unconfirmed, it cannot be confirmed on this scene alone that a trial on the merits may be received in that court.
Distinguishing the conclusions this section permits from those it does not, what is permitted is to take the defendant's general forum as the starting point of jurisdiction; what is not permitted is to re-designate another court as the court of jurisdiction merely because that place is inconvenient for the plaintiff. The appeal to inconvenience does not disappear, but it cannot occupy the place of the ground of jurisdiction. Nor is it determined in this section within what range the jurisdiction wording of the contract takes effect.
1.7The Link to the Application and the Dispositive Part
In such a scene, it must first be determined in which place's court the lawsuit is commenced. Accepting the conclusion of the preceding section that the plaintiff's convenience cannot be substituted for the legal ground of jurisdiction, this section examines separately the starting point of the place of commencement and other grounds.
As to which court has jurisdiction over an action, Article 2 of the Civil Procedure Act provides that "The court of the place where the defendant's general forum is located shall have jurisdiction over an action." The party this language singles out is the defendant; the standard place is that general forum; and the structure is one in which general jurisdiction is recognized for the court of that place. Thus Article 2 takes as its starting point not the plaintiff's convenience or the convenience of filing, but a place centered on the defendant.
On the basis of this language, the conclusion of this section is that the defendant's general forum is taken as the starting point, while another jurisdiction prescribed by law is examined separately. Here the judgment of the starting point and the separate judgment of another jurisdiction are distinct stages. The former establishes the general standard of jurisdiction, whereas the latter confirms whether there are grounds prescribed by law apart from that standard. If the two stages are mixed and a place is determined by convenience or agreement alone, the purpose and scope of fixing the starting point are altered.
The strongest counterargument targets the point that a defendant-centered place makes access difficult for the victim. If the court is distant for the plaintiff to file suit, costs and time increase, and the concrete inconvenience remains that the burden on the party filing suit rather than defending may grow. Yet despite such losses and values, the plaintiff's convenience cannot be substituted for the legal ground of jurisdiction. For convenience speaks only to the convenience of the outcome and does not become a ground for determining which court has jurisdiction.
The fact confirmed in the synthetic scene is that Plaintiff A filed suit in a place other than the location of Defendant B and relied on the jurisdiction clause of the contract. This fact alone does not determine whether that other court corresponds to Defendant B's general forum, or whether the jurisdiction clause of the contract corresponds to another jurisdiction prescribed by law. So long as the scope of the jurisdiction agreement and the location of Defendant B remain unconfirmed, whether the chosen court has jurisdiction remains undetermined. However, if exclusive jurisdiction is confirmed, the jurisdictional conclusion reached by convenience and agreement alone is changed.
The conclusion permitted by this section lies within the range of placing the defendant's general forum as the starting point of jurisdiction and separately confirming the grounds of other jurisdictions prescribed by law. The conclusion that the opposing party may be brought before that court on the sole circumstance of the plaintiff's convenience is not permitted. Conversely, one cannot immediately declare that relief is impossible by citing the circumstance that jurisdiction has not been fixed.
1.8The Scope This Section Undertakes
On the premise that the portions withdrawn or adjudicated in the preceding action must be compared in detail with the demands of the subsequent action, what this stage asks is whether a wrongly chosen court must be the terminus of remedy. To distinguish it from other issues within the same section, the question here is limited to in which place's court the lawsuit is commenced. In the scene where Plaintiff A filed suit in a place other than the location of Defendant B and relied on the jurisdiction clause of the contract, the starting point of jurisdiction must first be determined.
The language answering this question is found in Article 2 of the Civil Procedure Act. That Article provides that "The court of the place where the defendant's general forum is located shall have jurisdiction over an action" (Article 2 of the Civil Procedure Act). In this language, the standard is not the plaintiff who brings the action but the defendant, and the place determined by reference to that defendant becomes the ground of jurisdiction. The matters of special jurisdiction or exclusive jurisdiction prescribed by other Articles are not covered by the language of this Article and must therefore be examined separately.
This Article and the starting point determined above require two distinct stages to be distinguished. The first stage is to determine where the defendant's general forum is located; the second stage is to examine whether another jurisdiction prescribed by law separately arises. If the two stages are mixed and jurisdiction is determined on the sole circumstance of the plaintiff's convenience, the standard prescribed by Article 2 disappears. The conclusion that the defendant's general forum is taken as the starting point while another jurisdiction prescribed by law is examined separately is the result of preserving the order of these two stages. One cannot skip a stage and fix the jurisdiction of another court.
For the plaintiff, receiving a trial where he or she lives or where the harm occurred is far easier, and the very fact of having to go to a distant court can become a factor causing the claim to be abandoned. That the standard prescribed by Article 2 is the defendant's general forum means that, however great the circumstance of convenience may be, that circumstance alone cannot become the ground for bringing the opposing party before another court. This answer does not erase the difficulty of victim access; it makes clear that such difficulty is not taken as the legal ground of jurisdiction.
In the scene where Plaintiff A filed suit in a place other than the location of Defendant B and relied on the jurisdiction clause of the contract, all that this section can confirm is the fact that the court where the action was filed differs from the location of Defendant B's general forum. Within what range the jurisdiction clause of the contract takes effect is outside the scope of this section, and whether there are grounds of exclusive jurisdiction is also not yet confirmed. Nor is it determined which of the records—the complaint, the location materials, the jurisdiction agreement, the grounds of exclusive jurisdiction, and the transfer decision—has been secured. Accordingly, whether the chosen court has jurisdiction, or whether the matter can be corrected by a lawful transfer, cannot be confirmed on this scene alone.
The conclusion permitted by this section, as to the question of in which place's court the lawsuit is commenced, remains within the range of taking the defendant's general forum as the starting point while separately examining another jurisdiction prescribed by law. Here general forum means the place of general jurisdiction determined with reference to the defendant, and this definition follows the language of Article 2 (Article 2 of the Civil Procedure Act). This section does not permit the conclusion of substituting the plaintiff's convenience for the legal ground of jurisdiction. The effect of a jurisdiction agreement, the handling of a jurisdictional violation, and transfer to another court cannot be adjudicated in this section.
1.9Application of the Text of the Provisions and the Holdings of Precedents
In this scene, the question now to be addressed is in which place's court the lawsuit is commenced. The matters of hearing the case in the chosen court or correcting a jurisdictional violation by transfer also proceed from the same language.
Article 2 of the Civil Procedure Act provides that "The court of the place where the defendant's general forum is located shall have jurisdiction over an action." This language makes the court the party that determines jurisdiction, and makes the place where the defendant's general forum is located the standard place. The place the plaintiff wishes to choose for filing suit is itself not placed on the textual standard. The circumstance of a jurisdiction clause in the contract is not an object of judgment covered by the language of this Article.
The language of Article 2 places the starting point for adjudicating jurisdiction at the defendant's general forum, while another jurisdiction prescribed by law is examined separately. Only by distinguishing this starting point from other jurisdiction can it be judged respectively whether the chosen court has jurisdiction and whether a jurisdictional violation can be corrected by a lawful transfer. This language is taken as the ground for adjudicating hearing and transfer.
Inconvenience may arise in that the plaintiff must appear before a distant court or the cost of defense increases. The inconvenience of accessibility is a circumstance to be reduced, but it cannot alter the standard prescribed by the relevant original text into convenience. The ground of jurisdiction is taken from that language alone.
In this scene, the jurisdiction agreement and the materials on the defendant's location have not been confirmed; whether the chosen court has jurisdiction, and whether a jurisdictional violation can be corrected by a lawful transfer, are therefore undetermined. Matters that cannot be adjudicated on the scene alone are left undetermined.
This section uses only the language of the relevant original text as the ground for adjudicating the hearing of the relevant court or a lawful transfer, and applies only the language within that scope. That stage operates only where the chosen court has jurisdiction or where a jurisdictional violation has been corrected by a lawful transfer. If, while the chosen court lacks jurisdiction, it is premised that a trial on the merits may be received in that court, that conclusion is not permitted. Judgment extended to the reasons for judgment or to other items also falls outside the conclusions of this section.
1.10Fine Distinctions Within the Stage
If the preceding section examined in which court at which place an action is to be commenced, what remains now is, after that court continues the hearing within its own jurisdiction or hands the case over through a lawful transfer, how the same adjudication should be divided and examined anew.
The text that serves as the starting point of this question is set out in the Civil Procedure Act. That provision states only that "a lawsuit shall be under the jurisdiction of the court of the place where the defendant's general forum is located" (Article 2 of the Civil Procedure Act). The subject spoken of here is the defendant, the datum serving as the standard is that defendant's general forum, and the place designated as the result is the court having jurisdiction over the location of that general forum. The place that the plaintiff selected and wrote down in the contract, or a region convenient for the two parties to meet, is not recorded as a datum of this text. The provision does not deal at this point with issues concerning other jurisdiction.
The clue linking this text with the conclusion of this section is precisely that distinction. The general forum denotes the place of general jurisdiction determined with reference to the defendant, and it is the first starting point for finding the court in which to commence the action. The other jurisdiction provided by law is a matter examined separately alongside that starting point, not a means of overwriting the starting point for convenience. In this section, the detailed subdivisions within the step are limited to three cases: where it operates, where it is blocked, and where it remains undetermined. These three respectively refer to where jurisdiction exists or a violation has been cured by transfer, where that court's trial on the merits is assumed despite the absence of jurisdiction, and where the scope of the agreement or the location is unconfirmed; a fourth step is not created here.
If the plaintiff must travel to a distant court to file an action and gather evidence, that inconvenience is a real cost that cannot be erased by words and may become a factor that leads to abandoning the lawsuit. The basis for determining jurisdiction arises from the requirements the law imposes, whereas difficulty of access is a circumstance, not one of those requirements. The counterargument that the convenience of transfer may infringe upon the opposing party's choice of a place for defense and upon exclusive jurisdiction goes one step further, pointing out that the place chosen by the plaintiff may make the defendant's defense difficult or may move a case that the law has already assigned exclusively to a particular court. This section acknowledges that disadvantage but holds that it does not alter the basis of jurisdiction.
The records this section uses in determining jurisdiction are the complaint, materials on the location, the jurisdiction agreement, the grounds for exclusive jurisdiction, and the transfer decision. In the given scene, Plaintiff A filed an action in a place other than the location of Defendant B and invoked the jurisdictional clause of the contract as grounds; on these materials alone, it is not established what scope the jurisdictional clause of the contract agreed upon, nor where the location of Defendant B is. If the grounds for exclusive jurisdiction are absent from the records and the breadth or narrowness of the scope of the jurisdiction agreement cannot be ascertained, this section leaves that part undetermined and does not immediately convert it into a holding that the lawsuit has been blocked. The facts, service, and performance results of an actual case, as well as the year, amount, commencement date, and judgment outcome that the synthetic scene does not contain, are left undetermined.
The conclusion that may be reached in this section is as follows. Where the chosen court has jurisdiction, or where a violation of jurisdiction has been corrected by a lawful transfer, the matter is adjudicated within that court's hearing or within the lawful transfer, divided into three: where it operates, where it is blocked, and where it remains undetermined; and the details are subdivided only within the conditions falling under those three. This section does not permit a determination that assumes that a trial on the merits may be had before that court despite the absence of jurisdiction in the chosen court, nor does it permit adding a new adjudicative step here. A determination that uses the plaintiff's convenience as the legal basis for jurisdiction exceeds the bounds of this section.
1.11Synthesis of Effectiveness, Blockage, and Undetermination
In the synthetic scene, Plaintiff A filed an action in a court other than the location of Defendant B, invoking the jurisdictional clause of the contract as grounds. With regard to this scene, the analysis examines in turn whether the hearing before the chosen court opens in operation, whether it is blocked, or whether the materials remain undetermined.
"A lawsuit shall be under the jurisdiction of the court of the place where the defendant's general forum is located." Article 2 of the Civil Procedure Act places the starting point of jurisdiction at the defendant's general forum. Here, the general forum denotes the place of general jurisdiction determined with reference to the defendant; the subject indicated by the text is the defendant, and the object determined is the court having jurisdiction over the lawsuit.
According to this text, where the chosen court has jurisdiction, or where a violation of jurisdiction has been corrected by a lawful transfer, the hearing opens. The reason these two must be distinguished is that the first is a case satisfying jurisdiction from the outset and the second is a case where the violation is corrected through procedure, so the starting points differ. Conversely, if one assumes that a trial on the merits may be had before that court despite the absence of jurisdiction in the chosen court, the hearing is blocked.
The strongest counterargument to this distinction targets the point that the defendant-centered place makes the victim's access difficult. From the position of Plaintiff A, the inconvenience and cost of having to go to the location of Defendant B remain as real loss. Yet the plaintiff's convenience cannot be substituted for the legal basis of jurisdiction. Because convenience is not a circumstance that warrants recognizing jurisdiction, even if difficulty of access is removed, the starting point of jurisdiction does not change.
The facts ascertainable in the synthetic scene are only that Plaintiff A filed an action in a place other than the location of Defendant B and that he invoked the jurisdictional clause of the contract as grounds. On these facts alone, what scope the jurisdictional clause of the contract covers and where the location of Defendant B is cannot be confirmed. Accordingly, the step determination of this scene remains undetermined. If exclusive jurisdiction were confirmed, the conclusion on jurisdiction reached only by convenience and agreement would change, but at present that confirmation is lacking.
In the end, the case that opens is where the chosen court has jurisdiction or where a violation of jurisdiction has been corrected by a lawful transfer, and the case that is blocked is where one assumes the merits can be contested before that court despite the absence of jurisdiction. The boundary that the hearing cannot be opened merely on the basis of the plaintiff's convenience without a legal ground for jurisdiction is maintained.
1.12Conclusion Carried Over to the Next Section
In this scene, the first question is in which court at which place the lawsuit is to be commenced. So as not to repeat the same problem, attention is fixed on what the standard of place is in determining jurisdiction.
The first text that determines jurisdiction reads: "A lawsuit shall be under the jurisdiction of the court of the place of the defendant's general forum" (Article 2 of the Civil Procedure Act). In this text the subject is the defendant, the act is the filing of an action against him, and the condition is that the defendant's general forum lies within the jurisdictional district of that court. This provision, while setting the standard for the court in which an action is to be filed, does not preclude the existence of other jurisdiction.
In accordance with that text, the defendant's domicile is taken as the starting point of jurisdiction. The same place as Defendant B's address is taken as that starting point, and the court separately presented by the jurisdictional clause of the contract is examined as a separate ground. The reason the two standards must be viewed separately is that the former is the basic standard for the court that receives the filing of the action, while the latter is a standard added by agreement.
The counterargument that the defendant-centered place may make the victim's access difficult comes first. In that case, Plaintiff A is put to the inconvenience of attending a distant court, and the opportunity to choose a place for defense is also reduced. For convenience is only a circumstance bearing on the choice of place, while jurisdiction is determined according to the standard prescribed by the text.
What is to be confirmed in this scene is that the court in which the action was filed is a place other than the location of Defendant B and that the jurisdictional clause of the contract was presented as grounds. However, the scope of effect of that clause and the location of Defendant B are unconfirmed, and whether exclusive jurisdiction exists is also undetermined. Accordingly, it is difficult to determine, on this scene alone, which court holds jurisdiction, and the matter remains undetermined.
The conclusion this section permits goes no further than taking the defendant's domicile as the starting point of jurisdiction while separately examining the other jurisdiction provided by law. Does the address of an individual representative determine the jurisdiction of a corporation?