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Re: [dvd-discuss] Matt Pavlovich WINS in Cal. Supreme Court



At 09:14 PM 11/25/2002 -0800, Bryan Taylor wrote:

>--- "James S. Tyre" <jstyre@jstyre.com> wrote:
> >
> > Do keep in mind, though, that those issues were not litigated here, and 
> the
> > court was bound to accept as true certain allegations made in the
> > Complaint.  That won't be the case when they get to the Bunner 
> hearing.  It
> > is an open question whether there would be a predisposition to say the 
> same
> > things when the issues are litigated in the Cal. Supreme Court.
>
>That is a very important point about find jurisdiction based on the facts DVD
>CCA alleges it can prove. I searched the case for some statement by them to
>this effect, but was quite surprised to not see it. Did I miss it, or would
>they normally just leave it unstated?

The lack of such a statement isn't completely surprising, though the 
inclusion would have been nice.  Sometimes, courts don't bother with 
well-established principles that are not relevant to the immediate decision.


>I forget, did they hear the Bunner oral arguments yet? I was surprised 
>that the
>Court here didn't take care to indicate that they have not decided that case
>yet. You would think they would be very careful to state the context of their
>analysis.

Bunner has not been argued and no date for argument has been set.  In their 
eyes, Bunner is a completely different case, because the issues concerning 
personal jurisdiction have nothing to do with the issues concerning the merits.


>Final question: is there any Constitutional question here that DVD CCA might
>want to take up to the US Supreme Court? The Court today based a chunk of it's
>reasoning on CA caselaw and other parts of it on Federal caselaw. They didn't
>separate state law reasoning from Federal Constitutional reasoning, but rather
>kind of blurred it all together.

Not likely.  The exercise (or non-exercise) of personal jurisdiction is 
primarily a state law question.  The federal question arises if, and only 
if, the exercise of jurisdiction arguably offends federal constitutional 
notions of due process and fair play.

Here, the court decided under a combination of state and federal law that 
the exercise of personal jurisdiction was not proper.  Thus, even if the 
USSC might say differently in the federal context, it has no power to say 
differently in the state context.  There are many areas where the U.S. 
Constitution only sets a line, and states are free to do what they want as 
long as they don't cross the line.  For example, a state can be more 
protective of speech than is required under the First Amendment, but cannot 
be less protective.  Here, a state can be more constrained in the exercise 
of personal jurisdiction, but cannot be less.

Obviously, I have no idea whether DVDCCA will seek USSC review, but I see 
no basis on which USSC could, let alone would, grant review.

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James S. Tyre                               mailto:jstyre@jstyre.com
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