Comments on: More on District of Columbia v. Beretta, U.S.A.

By: Of Arms and the Law

Of Arms and the Law — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 11:32:13 +0000

Personal jurisdiction

Overlawyered raises an interesting question regarding the DC gun liability suit: isn’t lack of personal jurisdiction over the manufacturer a defense? Personal jurisdiction amounts to — you can’t sue a person anywhere you want: in order to sue a person…

By: Of Arms and the Law

Of Arms and the Law — Sun, 01 May 2005 12:25:57 +0000

Personal jurisdiction

By: Dave Hardy

Dave Hardy — Sun, 01 May 2005 11:50:30 +0000

I actually defended a gun case here on personal jurisdiction grounds. It involved a single-action revolver, made in the early 70s, by Uberti of Italy, for Iver Johnson here in the US.

I could prove that at the time of mfr (the relevant time), Uberti had no American presence, probably had never heard of Arizona. It made the guns in Italy for I-J, to its specs, and I-J took possession of them in Italy, then shipped them to its plant in New Jersey. How the gun came to be in Ariz. 30 yrs later is unknown: it could have been sold at retail in a different state. It clearly failed the Asahi plurality test (intentional availment of a State’s market) and likely failed the minority test (stream of commerce) as well since there was no showing of retail sale in Arizona.

Arizona Supreme Court nonetheless held that Arizona had jurisdiction. It essentially turned Asahi around, holding that it was enough that the mfr knew that the guns were going to the US, didn’t take measures to forbid the wholesaler to sell to AZ, and hence could sufficiently foresee that a gun delivered in Italy to a New Jersey company would, 30 yrs later, wind up in AZ and cause harm.

By: Ted

Ted — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 18:52:05 +0000

Arthur R. Miller and David Crump, “Jurisdiction and Choice of Law in Multistate Class Actions After Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Shutts,” 96 Yale L. J. 1 (1986).

By: Flavio Rose

Flavio Rose — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 16:04:59 +0000

One of the things that called people’s attention in Phillips Petroleum v. Shutts is that the standard for choice of law seemed to be looser than the standard for personal jurisdiction. There was an article by Arthur Miller in Yale Law Journal mostly about the case, not long after it was handed down, if memory serves me, discussing this issue.

By: Cousin Dave

Cousin Dave — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 13:24:27 +0000

Doesn’t the issue of sales over the Internet complicate this further? Internet point-of-sale systems do not generally have the ability to distinguish what state the buyer is in from the IP address or other information that can be obtained from the network protocols. It is true that when the system asks for a shipping address, it can reject zip codes in states where the seller desires not to do business.

However, even this isn’t foolproof. Renting mailboxes in another state in order to bypass sellers’ jurisdiction restrictions is an old tactic. For instance, from Huntsville, AL, I can rent a mailbox in Fayetteville, TN, about 30 minutes away, use it to take delivery of an Internet-ordered product, and bring it back into Alabama. If I subsequently sue the manufacturer, an Alabama court would probably hold that it has jurisdiction despite my subterfuge. And to make matters even worse: what about products and services that require no physical shipment, such as airline tickets, e-books, or computer software? In this case, the “good” purchased may consist entirely of data flowing over the Internet, and the seller has no idea whatsoever where the buyer is. (There is already a sort-of precedence for this: If I’m not badly mistaken, eBay has a worldwide ban on Nazi paraphenalia being sold through its system, because the technical ability to exclude bidders from France or Germany, where purchase of such paraphenalia is illegal, does not exist. Thus, eBay has to prohibit for Americans an activity that is perfectly legal in the USA.)