I'm working on an assignment for my Business Law class (for my business minor). Reading a decision from the WI Court of Appeals. I need to apply the precedent set by that decision to a hypothetical scenario my professor dreamed up. Simple enough you might think, but the intricacies involved are mind boggling....yes, personal jurisdiction applies, BUT it doesn't meet due process requirements...or does it?.





I nodded off multiple times reading the case at my desk, in the middle of the day, after getting a good nights sleep.
Stuff like this puts me to sleep:





"[I]f a contract exists between the two
parties, a court must consider the impact of the contract on the question of whether a party
has 'purposefully established minimum contacts within the forum.'  All prior
negotiations and contemplated future consequences of the contract, as well as any relevant
terms of the contract and the course of dealing between the parties, must be examined.
Furthermore, only if the nature of the relationship between the nonresident to the company in
the forum state is 'fortuitous' or 'attenuated' will a contractual
relationship between the parties fail to satisfy this inquiry."








It's going to be a late night tonight...I can just sense it.






 

so whats the question?  :)

You do get to say "fungible" a lot, though.

Blah, blah, blah.  Does the judge want to keep the case or clear his docket?  There, I just saved you lots of time.  

Basically, I need to decide whether or not a Wisconsin business owner can sue a South Carolina business owner in WI court. The WI business found a piece of equipment for sale through a Google search. The WI business contacted the seller (the SC business) over the phone to gather info on the equipment. The WI business owner said they would be contacting the seller by email within a day. The WI business later sent an email offering a certain dollar amount for the equipment. The SC business replied to the email, accepting the offer. The equipment arrives in WI, and the SC business is paid in full. One month later, the equipment breaks down, and the WI business wants to sue the SC business- in WI court- for fraudulently representing the equipment sold during the initial phone conversation.
All I need to do is decide if WI court has personal jurisdiction over the SC business (using this for precedent), and write 2-4 pages explaining why I decided what I did. While technically the WI court has personal jurisdiction over the SC business because they promised to deliver goods to the defendant in the state of WI, they did not initiate contact with the WI business, and the contacts were "attenuated", as they say. So I need to figure out if the case meets the due process requirements that go along with personal jurisdiction.
The professor told the class he's not grading on a "right" or "wrong" answer (he's not a lawyer or a judge, so he isn't even 100% of the answer to some of his hypothetical questions), so I just need to back up my answer by citing the court decision linked to above. I just can't decide which side I want to take (this is complicated by the fact that I lean towards agreeing with the dissenting opinion in the above WI Appeals Court case...




).
 

A PERFECT example of why our legal system is the worst in the world.

The best legal argument I ever heard began with the words "Judge, it was good seeing you are our kid's little league game last weekend. . . ."

I lost that one.  

I have a feeling this is most likely the truth. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how my professor would take a response like that.




 

The "settled out of court" scene in Casino comes to mind.


A quote frequently attributed to Col Jeff Cooper: "There are very few problems that a man can't fix with $700 or a 30-06."