Duke Energy and Westinghouse Electric are battling over money due, or not due, for the cancelled Levy County nuclear power plant in Florida. After Duke terminated the contract earlier this year, the two parties engaged in negotiation per their contract. When those efforts failed, both sides filed suit, one day apart, in two different states. Duke filed in North Carolina, per the contract, and Westinghouse filed the next day in Pennsylvania, where it had performed most of its work. The NC federal court judge has just refused to transfer that case to PA, and has directed Westinghouse to file an answer in the NC case.
The judge methodically reviewed all eleven factors in assessing a motion to transfer a case, finding that two factors favored PA, two favored NC, and the remaining factors were neutral. So quantitatively, it was a tie, but qualitatively – including the plaintiff's choice of forum and the contract's designated forum – the analysis favored leaving the case pending in NC. The case is in the Western District, as docket number 3:14-cv-00141-MOC-DSC.
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