On Thu, Oct 11, 2001 at 09:12:02AM -0500, Chris Lawrence wrote:
> On Oct 11, Branden Robinson wrote:
> > Allonn Levy of the HS Law Group <http://www.hsapc.com>, represents Matt
> > Pavlovich in the DVD CCA v. Bunner, et al. suit.
> [...]
> > At root, we want to answer one question:
> >
> > Why shouldn't the State of California be able to assert its jurisdiction
> > over anyone in the world in civil matters? (You can't extradite someone
> > on a non-criminal complaint, AFAIK.)
>
> Not to put too fine a point on it, but there are relatively good
> reasons why plaintiffs should be able to sue for damages in their home
> jurisdictions. Imagine you buy a car, it is defective, and you want
> to sue the manufacturer. Now imagine you have to sue them in a court
> in Detroit, Flint, Nashville, Osaka, Seoul, New Delhi, or whereever
> the car was manufactured... If the judges in Detroit are in the auto
> industry's pocket, I doubt you're ever going to see your money. (See
> also: Everyone in Bhopal v. Union Carbide.) Hence the reason why
> plaintiffs can sue in their home jurisdictions.
>
> I think the place to focus the argument on is the fact mpav is an
> *individual* (as opposed to a corporation that does business in
> California), rather than the overall jurisdictional argument which at
> best is specious.
This is only true where the conduct at issue took place in your home
jusrisdiction. You will notice that both the actions that you
suggested wanting to sue for (being sold a bad car, being poisoned)
happened in the plaintiff's home jurisdiction.
The difference is that the action in question in Bunner did not take
place in the plaintiff's home jurisdiction, except by the torturous
interpretation of the appeals court, which is that everything that
happens on the internet happens in Calif. if it affects a
Calif. resident.
This claim is equivalent to the idea that if you come to Illinois, and
I defraud you, and then you go back to Calif., you can then sue me
there.
sam th --- sam@uchicago.edu --- http://www.abisource.com/~sam/
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