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Long-Arm Jurisdiction Falls Short
Robert found just the excavator he wanted advertised on an Internet auction site.
Before making the successful bid, he contacted the seller through e-mail and
received assurances from her that the product was in good condition. Robert
then traveled to the seller's home, which was several states away, and bought
the excavator. When the equipment did not perform as expected and the seller
did not respond to Robert's request for a partial refund, Robert sued the seller
in his home state.
Robert's lawsuit failed because the seller was not subject
to the jurisdiction of the courts in Robert's home state. For a nonresident
to bring herself within the reach of a state's “long-arm” jurisdiction,
she must purposefully have benefited from the privilege of doing
business in that state. Perhaps the seller could have foreseen that residents
of
any state might bid on the excavator, but that was insufficient
to bring her into the courts in Robert's state. She had no control over
who would
ultimately be the winning bidder, nor could she exclude bidders
from particular jurisdictions.
Also weighing against subjecting the seller to litigation
was the isolated nature of the transaction and the fact that she was not
a commercial seller and was
using a third party's site. A different result might have been achieved against
a business that used its own website to advertise itself and make transactions
across state lines.
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