World-Wide
Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson
444
Yeazell,
p. 119-126
Facts:
Somebody
bought a car from a car dealership in
Procedural
Posture: The
car dealer and regional distributor put in a special appearance to argue that
Issue:
Can a state
court exercise in personam jurisdiction over a nonresident corporation
when the only connection between the defendants and the forum is that the car
they sold in their state got into an accident in the forum state?
Rule:
In order
for a state court to exercise in personam jurisdiction over a defendant,
there must exist minimum contacts between the defendant, forum, and claim.
Analysis: The court finds that the
contacts between the defendant and the forum are not sufficient to sustain jurisdiction. They argue that if they allow the defendants
to stand trial in
Justice
Brennan dissents, making an argument that states’ rights and plaintiffs’
rights are being inappropriately underweighted against defendants’
rights. Brennan argues that cars have a
special status among products because it’s expected that they will move
themselves into other jurisdictions. Finally,
Brennan cites changes in insurance, transportation and communications which
make it relatively easy and inexpensive for any defendant to appear in virtually
any forum.
Conclusion:
The court
rules that the appellants have no contacts with
Notes
and Problems
1.
a. Only
World-Wide and Seaway were before the Court.
b. Presumably,
Audi and Volkswagen advertise in
c. I believe the
Massena retailer will not be subject to personal jurisdiction in
2. It doesn’t
seem inevitable that there should be lawsuits both in
a. So if the
problem is a design fault, the manufacturer is liable.
b. This might be
seen as burdensome to the dealer and distributor since they would be defending
two different suits at once.
3. Maybe there is
a diminishing marginal cost of suing more and more parties. That is, once you have a lawsuit going
against two parties, the cost of adding two more is relatively low. The text suggests that they didn’t sue the
driver of the other vehicle because that driver probably didn’t have much
money.
a. So here, it’s
confirmed that he didn’t have insurance, so the best you could do is personally
bankrupt him.
b. So they were
going for the big bucks. To do so, it
was desirable to keep the case in state court rather than federal court. They argued that the Robinsons were still
c. I would expect
that the defendants would move to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction,
and it would seem that the motion must be granted. If that failed for some reason, I suppose
they would try to move the trial to federal court.
4. It seems to
make sense that you should be able to join any party that is substantively
responsible for the bad act.
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