Tag Archives: personal jurisdiction

Case of the Day: Sokolow v. PLO

FSIA, ,
Woman being evacuated after a Jerusalem terror attack
Aftermath of a 2002 Palestinian terror attack in Jerusalem. Credit: Times of Israel / Flash90

The case of the day is Sokolow v. Palestine Liberation Organization (2d Cir. 2016). I wrote about a similar case, Safra v. Palestinian Authority, back in 2015. The gist of the earlier case, which was decided in Washington, was that the Palestinian Authority could not be sued for damages under the Anti-Terrorism Act because it was not subject to the court’s personal jurisdiction. The irony in Safra was that in order to prevail, the PA had to argue that it wasn’t a state, since states are always subject to the personal jurisdiction of the district courts in cases where an exception to FSIA immunity applies. That’s not a legal argument the supporters of unilateral declarations of Palestinian statehood are likely to want to trumpet, but it carried the day.
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Case of the Day: National Asset Loan Management v. McCann

Recognition and Enforcement, ,

The case of the day is National Asset Loan Management, Ltd. v. McCann (Pa. Super. Ct. 2015). NALM sued John McCann in the Irish High Court. McCann resided in Northern Ireland, so NALM sought to serve him with process via the Northern Ireland courts. When that failed, he obtained an order from the Irish courts for substituted service on McCann’s solicitors in Ireland. After NALM effected the substituted service, McCann appeared in the Irish action and moved to set aside the order for substituted service. The court denied the motion, and McCann then defaulted. The High Court entered a default judgment. McCann moved to set the default judgment aside, but the High Court denied the motion; McCann’s appeal in Ireland is still pending. NALM then sought recognition of the judgment in the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia. The court recognized the judgment, and McCann appealed, arguing that the judgment should not have been recognized because the Irish court had lacked personal jurisdiction over him. (There were some other issues, too, which I am not going to cover).
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Case of the Day: In re Marriage of Lohman

Recognition and Enforcement, ,

The case of the day is In re Marriage of Lohman (Colo. Ct. App. 2015). The wife was an Englishwoman. She and the husband married in Colorado in 1997, and they had a child the next year. In 2008, after the couple separated, the wife moved to England with the child, while the husband stayed in Colorado.

The wife filed a divorce petition in an English court and served her husband with process in Colorado. The husband did not participate in the English proceedings. In 2010, the English court entered a judgment against the husband for £638,000, which included £120,000 as a lump sum for maintenance, £80,000 for the child’s post-secondary education, £423,000 for the purchase of a home, and £15,000 for attorney’s fees.

The wife then sought to register the English support order in the Grand County (Colorado) District Court under the Uniform Family Support Act. The husband opposed her attempt. The district court ruled in favor of the wife and the husband appealed, arguing that the English court had lacked personal jurisdiction. (There was procedural wrangling about whether the defense had been waived, etc., that I won’t cover here).
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