BENTON – Chinese tourists whose bus crashed in Utah improperly filed suit in Southern Illinois, Senior U.S. District Judge Phil Gilbert ruled on July 23.
He transferred the suit to Northern Indiana, finding a dealer there acted as middleman in selling the bus.
“Nothing substantial happened in Illinois,” Gilbert wrote.
The crash, in 2019, killed four of 29 passengers and seriously injured 14.
Derek Brandt of the McCune Wright firm in Edwardsville sued four Daimler automotive companies for the victims in February.
He sued a temporary owner of the bus and two businesses that assembled it.
He sued Truck Centers Inc. of Troy, another temporary owner.
To assert Illinois jurisdiction, he alleged that a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to the claim occurred in Illinois.
Daimler Trucks counsel Robert Adams of Kansas City, Mo. moved to dismiss the complaint for improper venue.
He claimed that without any event occurring in the district, the fact that Truck Centers was an Illinois corporation could not establish venue.
“Selling a product to an Illinois corporation does not equate to selling a product in Illinois,” Adams wrote.
Truck Centers moved for transfer to Northern Indiana, where an employee of its branch office in Elkhart handled the sale.
Gilbert granted transfer, finding the claims had only the most tangential relationship to Illinois.
“Clearly there are multiple districts where this case could have been brought other than Illinois,” Gilbert wrote.
He found the bill of sale indicated payment to Truck Centers in Illinois, but the next owner paid Truck Center’s dealer in Elkhart and gave him the title.
“One could not reasonably describe that attenuated connection as constituting a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to the claim,” he wrote.
He found most defendants objected to his personal jurisdiction, and most were at least arguably subject to personal jurisdiction in Northern Indiana.
“A party who believes it is not subject to the personal jurisdiction of the U.S. district court for the Northern District of Indiana may file a motion to dismiss in that forum,” he wrote.