In one of my first Civil Procedure classes as a 1L at William Mitchell, I learned about the ever-present, and ever-important, legal requirement of personal jurisdiction.  After plodding through the cases that most lawyers immediately forgot after law school (Pennoyer v. Neff, anyone?), my class came to the gold standards in the personal jurisdiction world: […]

The fight for preferred forum is an important preliminary skirmish in any interstate legal battle — that is, in any litigation between, say, a Minnesota company and an out-of-state company.  And the proverbial “race to the courthouse” is a very common threshold issue. As every experienced Minnesota civil litigator knows, lawsuits, under Minnesota law, “commence” […]

A Minnesota company got into a commercial dispute with a Florida company about an employee, working in Florida, who jumped ship from the Florida to the Minnesota company (again, still working in Florida). The two companies had the proverbial “race to the courthouse” filing competing actions on the same day, one in Minnesota federal court […]

The Minnesota Supreme Court today reversed the Minnesota Court of Appeals’ reversal of the Anoka County District Court’s grant of a motion to dismiss based on forum non conveniens (first reported here in February). For the Court, Justice Meyer wrote that a district court may dismiss on forum non conveniens grounds even though the adequacy of […]

Pending before the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit is an issue of first impression for the Eighth Circuit, an issue that several district courts have confronted, but only one other circuit court, the Eleventh Circuit (Tapscott v. MS Dealer Service Corp.) — a decision whose analysis has been subject to criticism). […]

Jurisdiction/Choice-Of-Law Drunken Defendant collided head-on with a vehicle driven by Plaintiff on the Blatnik Bridge, which spans the St. Louis River between Superior, Wisconsin and Duluth, Minnesota. Plaintiff was driving toward Wisconsin; Defendant “was driving toward Minnesota, but in the Wisconsin-bound lane,” as the Court of Appeals put it. (I favor compass directions and the […]

Michael Foods, Inc. has brought an insurance coverage claim against U.S. Specialty Insurance Co. in United States District Court (D. Minn.) based on a coverage claim for Michael Foods’ costs in connection with responding to a subpoena of the U.S. Department of Justice. The policy is a $10,000,000 Directors & Officers policy. The subpoena was […]

Word today that the Minnesota Supreme Court granted cert on this case, discussed originally on this blog back in December. Paulownia Plantations de Panama Corporation vs. Ambrose Harry Rajamannan, A07-2199 (Minn. Ct. App., 12/10/08) A Man, A Plan, Paulownia Trees, Panama, or “Oh lord, stuck in Anoka County again. Rode in on the greyhound, Ill […]