Bill Swallow, a partner in our Chicago office, led a team that secured an important personal jurisdiction decision in Marion County, Indiana.
In March 2020, Bill Swallow, a partner in our Chicago, Illinois office, led a team that secured an important personal jurisdiction decision in Marion County, Indiana. Representing a brake manufacturing company that had only been incorporated in the United States in 2009 and was presently incorporated and maintaining business operations in Nevada, we began a nearly two year process towards dismissal. Despite the late date of incorporation, Plaintiff refused to dismiss our client and argued that Indiana courts could infer jurisdiction over our client based on the actions of a different solvent entity through the legal theories of successor, alter-ego, or agency liabilities. However, after a lengthy jurisdictional discovery process involving extensive written jurisdictional discovery, the deposition of a corporate representative on jurisdictional grounds, and oral argument, the Marian County trial court ruled that dismissal was appropriate as Plaintiff's arguments of successor, alter-ego, or agency liability were without merit and could not confer jurisdiction.
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