Key Points

  • The Alabama Supreme Court held that the Monroe Circuit Court exceeded its discretion by leaving a venue-based motion to dismiss pending while ordering merits discovery.
  • The writ directs the circuit court to vacate its January 6, 2026, discovery order and to rule on the motion to dismiss as expeditiously as possible, with any interim discovery limited to venue issues.
  • The court held the petition timely because it challenged the denial of a second protective-order motion that rested on changed circumstances, not a mere request for reconsideration.
  • The majority read Ex parte International Paper and Ex parte Nationwide Agribusiness to establish a general rule against merits discovery before a venue ruling, and it expressed no opinion on whether the New York forum-selection clause should be enforced.
  • Justice Mendheim, joined by Chief Justice Stewart, dissented on the grounds that the petition was untimely and that the discovery order fell within the trial court's discretion.

The Alabama Supreme Court on Friday ordered a Monroe County judge to decide whether a business lawsuit against Honeywell International Inc. belongs in New York before requiring Honeywell and two co-defendants to turn over discovery on the merits of the case.

Writing for a 6-2 majority, Justice McCool granted a writ of mandamus, an order from a higher court directing a lower court to act, to Honeywell, UOP LLC, which Honeywell controls, and Mark Smith, an employee of the companies. The writ directs the circuit court to vacate a January 6, 2026, discovery order and to rule on the defendants' motion to dismiss "as expeditiously as possible."

The ruling makes venue, the question of which court should hear a case, a matter to settle before merits discovery. The majority read two 2018 decisions, Ex parte International Paper Co. and Ex parte Nationwide Agribusiness Insurance Co., to "indicate that the general rule is to prohibit discovery on the merits until such time as a trial court rules on a venue challenge." Justice Mendheim dissented, joined by Chief Justice Stewart. Justice Shaw recused himself.

Southern Logistics Inc. and Richland Resources LLC sued in October 2024 over business relationships involving the removal and repurposing of ammonium nitrate water from a Mobile County landfill. They allege breach of contract, intentional interference and conspiracy, contending the defendants "disrupt[ed] long-standing contracts and business relationships of the plaintiffs." A fourth defendant, Environmental Business Specialists LLC, did not join the petition.

The petition turned on a September 2013 contract between Southern Logistics and Honeywell that required Honeywell and UOP to protect certain confidential information. The plaintiffs allege the defendants breached it by sharing that information with Environmental Business Specialists. According to the defendants, the contract also contains a forum-selection clause, a term fixing where disputes must be litigated, requiring that any dispute be "brought exclusively in the state or federal courts sitting in New York, New York."

After a federal court remanded the case to state court in June 2025, the defendants moved on July 15, 2025, to dismiss for improper venue, arguing that the case belonged in New York or, failing that, outside Monroe County. The circuit court denied their motion to stay merits discovery in August 2025 and in September 2025 denied their motion for a protective order confining discovery to venue. The defendants renewed that request on December 10, 2025.

On January 6, 2026, about 30 minutes after the defendants filed a supporting brief, the circuit court issued an order that the opinion described as "a verbatim copy" of one proposed by Southern Logistics. The order required complete responses to written discovery and the depositions of seven witnesses. It stated that the motion to dismiss "REMAINS PENDING" and left any hearing date to a report the parties would file after the depositions.

The majority found that arrangement indistinguishable from the 2018 cases. Justice McCool wrote that "the circuit court has indefinitely stayed a ruling on the UOP defendants' motion to dismiss until the parties complete time-consuming discovery on the merits." He added that any future hearing depended on "the plaintiffs' willingness to agree that the time for ruling on the motion has arrived."

The plaintiffs argued that the earlier cases involved trial courts that had set discovery deadlines or trial dates. The court wrote that "nothing in those opinions indicates that the setting of a discovery deadline or a trial date was a determinative fact." Quoting International Paper, it held that the circuit court "exceeded its discretion by failing to rule on … the motion to dismiss the … complaint based on improper venue while allowing discovery on the merits to proceed."

The majority stopped short of barring all discovery. It acknowledged that a 2000 decision, Ex parte Windom, called a blanket venue-only discovery rule "not generally desirable," but said the later cases set the general rule. The circuit court may still order discovery relevant to venue and resolve disputes over it.

The majority also held the petition timely. Mandamus petitions are presumptively timely within 42 days, and the plaintiffs said the clock started with the September 2025 denial, not the January order. The court held that the December motion rested on a new argument, made after the defendants served supplemental discovery responses, so that "the circumstances of the case had changed."

The court declined to address the plaintiffs' arguments that the clause does not reach all their claims, would split the case between New York and Monroe County, and had been waived. The opinion said that "even if there is merit to these arguments -- and we offer no opinion on that issue -- they do not provide a basis for denying" the petition.

In dissent, Justice Mendheim wrote that he could not conclude the circuit court had "refused" to perform any "imperative duty" or that the defendants had filed on time. He called the December motion the defendants' third attempt to limit discovery and wrote that he did "not agree with permitting a party to use piecemeal and inadequate discovery responses to form the foundation for repetitive issue presentation in order to seek mandamus relief."

Justice Mendheim noted that the complaint includes a claim under a May 2005 agreement between Southern Logistics and UOP that lacks a forum-selection clause, and he wrote that possible severance of claims warranted some discovery. He wrote that "it appears to me, as a former trial judge, that the circuit court has been attempting to allow limited discovery for purposes of deciding the venue questions."

The case returns to the Monroe Circuit Court, whose proceedings the Supreme Court had stayed since April 7, 2026. The trial court must vacate the January order and rule on the motion to dismiss, and "any discovery that the circuit court orders before ruling on that motion must be limited to the venue issues raised in that motion," the opinion said. The justices expressed no view on whether the motion should be granted.