The Pennsylvania Superior Court published an important opinion relating to venue and forum selection at the end of July 2025. In Somerlot v. Jung, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania ruled that healthcare providers are permitted to pre-select a venue in the case of civil litigation by including it in their Consent Contracts (2023 PA Super 166).

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Venue-selection clauses are common in commercial contracts and almost always enforced. For example, your service contract with your cell phone carrier almost certainly has language that mandates that disputes be addressed in specific courts, often related to the location of their services or business operations. Medical treatment consent forms are no different, and the Superior Court of Pennsylvania recognizes this in their recent opinion.

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Why is this decision important? The Somerlot decision appears to allow healthcare providers the ability to contract with their patients to have medical malpractice cases litigated to more conservative venues, keeping them out of plaintiff-friendly venues like Philadelphia County. In Medical Malpractice cases, an airtight venue-selection clause can be a deciding factor in where legal proceedings will occur. 

 

As of 2023, changes to Pennsylvania venue rules by the Pennsylvania Legislature have allowed personal injury lawyers to sue healthcare providers in Philadelphia County even if medical malpractice occurred in a completely different county. Abundant data shows that conservative rural counties are more likely to find in favor of a defendant-physician or a hospital rather than larger urban venues such as Philadelphia County. Likewise, Philadelphia County is known for their “nuclear verdicts” – i.e, unusually high jury awards in civil cases, typically exceeding $10 million.

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This Somerlot decision would allow healthcare providers, through their consent agreements, to keep any litigation within the counties where they rendered their medical treatment.

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What can you as a healthcare provider/physician do? It is critical that healthcare providers are thorough with patient-provider consent for treatment contracts, especially specifying the venue-selection clause in the case of civil action. In Pennsylvania contract law, a venue-selection clause allows parties to agree in advance on the specific court or location where any possible legal disputes will be resolved.

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In Somerlot v. Jung, the Defendants made sure to provide Plaintiff with the Consent-to-Operate contract where it specifically outlined the notice of venue. Here is the venue selection clause in the Defendants’ contract:

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“7. NOTICE: Any legal claims or civil actions, including, but not limited to, a claim for medical malpractice in any way related to this admission/procedure, and medical services provided by [Pain Management] or its employees, shall be brought solely in the Courts of Bucks County, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

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The Somerlot Court made an important note to point out that “Any reasonable reader of that paragraph would know exactly to what she was agreeing. It even included the word “NOTICE,” in all caps, to draw the reader’s attention to the paragraph. This paragraph would be enforceable even without an opt-out provision.

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Healthcare providers would be wise to study this venue-selection clause and closely mirror it in their own consent agreements.

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What were the facts of Somerlot case? In Somerlot v. Jung, Plaintiff, Saramari Somerlot, was scheduled to undergo a spinal cord surgery, performed by the Defendants, Dr. Soon Jung. Prior to surgery, Ms. Somerlot signed a Consent-to-Operate form which included a Venue Selection Clause. By signing the Consent Form which included the Forum Selection Clause, Ms. Somerlot agreed to sue Dr. Soon Jung in Bucks County, if she decided to pursue a malpractice claim related to spinal cord surgery.

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Ms. Somerlot eventually brought a lawsuit for malpractice, but she breached that Consent-to-Surgery Contract by suing Dr. Jung and the Defendants in Philadelphia County. The Defendants, Dr. Jung and Pain Management, filed preliminary objections to venue in Philadelphia County based on the venue-selection clause in the Consent-to-Operate agreement signed by Plaintiff, Ms. Somerlot. The Trial Court sustained the Preliminary Objection and transferred the case to Bucks County.

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Plaintiff appealed this decision to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania. As a precedential Superior Court Opinion, the ruling would be binding on all the Commonwealth’s Trial Courts regardless of what county it is in. In this case, the Plaintiff will likely appeal the decision to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. 

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What evidence supports the Court Opinion? The Plaintiff argued that under Pa.R.C.P. 1006 (c), “An action to enforce a joint or joint and several liability against two or more defendants … may be brought against all defendants in any county in which the venue may be laid against any one of the defendants under the general rules of subdivisions (a) or (b)”. However, the principles of contract law state that parties can pre-select among all possible venues which venue will decide legal disputes that may arise between them. The contractual agreement to limit venue to, in this case, Bucks County superseded Rule 1006(c).

 

The court relied heavily on Central Contracting v. Co. v. C. E. Youngdahl & Co., 209 A.2d 810 (Pa. 1965) a seminal contracts case which applied the same rationale to commercial contracts. Furthermore, the Somerlot Court ruled that if the plaintiff did not wish to accept the offer with the venue-selection clause, the law of contracts would allow her to reject it. To do so, a plaintiff is able to make a counteroffer that does not include the venue-selection clause or crosses it out before signing.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS :

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• Be sure to include a detailed venue-selection clause in your/your Insured’s Consent-to-Treatment Agreements.

 

• Venue-selection clauses can have huge impacts that allow malpractice cases to be defended in more favorable conditions.

 

• Include clear, concise language in the venue-selection clause. A good template for a venue-selection clause looks like this:

 

NOTICE: Any legal claims or civil actions, including, but not limited to, a claim for medical malpractice in any way related to this admission/procedure/treatment, and medical services provided by [Name of your Practice] or its employees, shall be brought solely in the Courts of [Name of your County], in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

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Following the above steps can make significant progress against the trend of filing malpractice cases in Philadelphia County. This is just one of many ways that the attorneys at my firm, Hill | Fenstermaker LLC, are working diligently to provide health care providers a fighting change in malpractice litigation.

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[1] A special thanks to our brilliant intern, Fatima Adnane, for her assistance in researching and writing this article. Fatima is a political science student at Moravian University and plans to attend law school following her graduation.