More evidence
Coyle * and Richardson ** 21, * Reef C. Ivey II Distinguished Professor of Law, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. ** Associate, McGuireWoods LLP; Law Clerk, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 2021-2022 Term. (John* and Katherine C.**, Spring 2021, ARTICLE: Enforcing Inbound Forum Selection Clauses in State Court, 53 Ariz. St. L.J. 65, 102. Lexis accessed online via KU libraries)
Legal scholars have long distinguished between "law on the books" and "law in action." The law on the books is "the content of statutes, regulations, and judicial decisions," while the law in action "refers to regularities describing how legal authorities enforce the 'law on the books.'" 182In the previous Part, we surveyed the law on the books as it relates to the enforcement of inbound forum selection clauses. In this Part, we turn our attention to how state courts apply and enforce that law. After describing our methodological approach and offering a summary of our empirical findings, we show that regardless of which method states purport to use in deciding whether to give effect to inbound forum selection clauses, they refuse to enforce them for just a handful of reasons that fall into predictable categories.