Waukegan, Illinois – A hearing was held on October 24, 2018 in Lake County, Illinois on Craney Law Group’s Motion to Dismiss based on a lack of personal jurisdiction filed on behalf of two of its clients in this matter based in Wisconsin. Judge Diane Winter presided over the arguments from the Plaintiff and firm Associate, Joshua A. Edelson, who argued that the Lake County Court may not exercise general personal jurisdiction over the Wisconsin-based defendants because neither of these CLG clients are domiciled nor maintain contacts with the state of Illinois so continuous and systematic to render either of them essentially “at home” in the state of Illinois and, therefore, the case must dismissed with prejudice against them both. After entertaining the arguments, Judge Winter issued an immediate ruling from her bench in favor of the Defendants and dismissed the case against them with prejudice. In doing so, Judge Winter agreed with the defense and agreed with firm Associate, Joshua A. Edelson, that Plaintiffs had not met their burden of establishing general jurisdiction over the dismissed Defendants when analyzed under the current stringent jurisprudential standards articulated by both the United States and Illinois Supreme Courts as it relates to general jurisdiction (See, Daimler AG v. Bauman, 134 S. Ct. 746, 754 (2014) & Aspen American Insurance Co. v. Interstate Warehousing, Inc., IL 121281 (2017)). Plaintiff has the burden of proving the case for jurisdiction when seeking jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant and must allege facts in the complaint upon which to base the assertion of jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant. An Illinois court’s personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant is limited by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Due Process Clause governs the general personal jurisdiction analysis and Illinois courts have not only adopted such a standard, as described in Daimler, but also recognize the demanding nature of this standard for general personal jurisdiction over a foreign corporation, which is that it is incredibly difficult to establish general jurisdiction in a forum other than the place of incorporation or principal place of business.“Neither of our clients are incorporated nor maintain a principal place of business in Illinois,” Edelson said, “and because of this I believe the Judge was able to see through Plaintiffs’ arguments and rule in our favor.” The ruling is one of five motions the Craney Law Group has won on behalf of its clients in the past 15 months that has resulted in the dismissal of such clients from the pending litigation.
