Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: Business Contract Law

This is more complicated a question that it seems to be on the surface.

The basic answer is that they cannot sue you in Texas. There are, however, a number of exceptions to this basic rule.

It primarily depends on why they want to sue you in Texas.

Feel free to email me if you want a better answer, specific to you.

Re: Business Contract Law

Maybe. It depends on what you supposedly did and where. Your subject line refers to a business contract; the contract itself may include an agreement to litigate any disputes in a Texas court.

Even if Texas is not a proper forum for the case, the Texas court may not realize that unless you point it out. You need to do this carefully, though, since doing it incorrectly could easily give the court jurisdiction over you even if it would otherwise have none. Ignoring the case could also lead to serious problems, since a court that doesn't realize it lacks jurisdiction might enter a judgment against you. You would be entitled to have the judgment set aside, but doing so will be costly and the judgment will likely cause real problems for you in the meantime.

Without knowing more about the case, this is the best I can do. You may want to consult directly with a lawyer to learn what your options are.

Re: Business Contract Law

A complex body of law going under the name of "proper jurisdiction" determines whether a person living in one state can be sued in another.

In general, you will need a lawyer to help you assess this.

The broad rules are as follows:

1. A court will not normally have proper jurisdiction over you unless you have some connection with the state in which the court sits.

2. Beyond that, the matter generally turns on whether your "contacts" with the jurisdiction are sufficient such that the law would see it as fair that you can be sued there.

3. Whether your contacts would be sufficient with Texas or not would depend on a variety of factors. For example, if the suit arises out of a business deal that you did with a Texas company, the courts would be more inclined to find proper jurisdiction in Texas than if you simply signed a consumer contract with a distant company.

5. Even if you are not legitimately sued in a distant court, you normally still have to do something to challenge jurisdiction in that court by "specially appearing" to contest that jurisdiction. Again, this is normally done through a lawyer. If you don't contest jurisdiction, a default judgment may be taken against you once you have been served with process and failed to appear.

Such a judgment can then be brought to your state and enforced under the constitution's full faith and credit clause. You can oppose it at that time as well but you will be fighting more of an uphill fight at that time. It is not normally wise to allow a default judgment to be taken against you.

These broad rules only give you a general sense of how this area of law works. You need to see a lawyer to evaluate your specific case.

Re: Business Contract Law

A court cannot hear a case and render a judgment unless it has personal jurisdiction over the defendant. There are two steps to personal jurisdiction: service of process and the forum's validity for the case.

Service of process is pretty straightforward; Texas law will probably allow, as does California's, for personal service, substituted service, some kind of mail-and-acknowledgment service, and service by publication as a last resort.

Appropriateness of Texas as a forum is a more complex matter. A defendant can probably be haled into court in Texas, and the case tried and a valid judgment rendered, if any of the following is true: (1) the contract specifically says that jurisdiction of disputes will be in Texas; (2) the contract was negotiated in Texas; (3) the contract was to be performed by the defendant in Texas, either entirely or in some substantial part; or (4) the defendant (you) has some other substantial and on-going connection with Texas, such as, maybe, the suit involves property you own in Texas even though you don't live there. If you lived in Texas, either now or at some other time that was important to the issues of the case, that would also get the matter into Texas jurisdiction, but you say you don't live there and I assume you also didn't live there when the acts alleged in the suit took place.

As the other answers have pointed out, you need to have an attorney make a "special appearance" to contest Texas jurisdiction if sued there and jurisdiction seems improper.

Re: Business Contract Law

It depends. You can hire a lawyer to oppose jurisdiction but the texas court may find that jurisdiction exists.

Best,

Daniel Bakondi, Esq.

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