small claims court jurisdiction

What is the name of your state? MD

I am being taken to small claims court in DC but I live in Maryland and the incident took place in MD so that should be grounds for lack of jurisdiction, correct?

whoa

elliebean said:

What is the name of your state? MD

I am being taken to small claims court in DC but I live in Maryland and the incident took place in MD so that should be grounds for lack of jurisdiction, correct?

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Ellie bean... keep all your questions together in one thread. In fact delete all but the first one or the one that has the most responses. You are all over this board!

sorry, I thought since i was asking a different questiuon i should start a new thread.

elliebean said:

I am being taken to small claims court in DC but I live in Maryland and the incident took place in MD so that should be grounds for lack of jurisdiction, correct?

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Nope. First, your issue is NOT jurisdiction, but venue.

And venue can be established by LOTS of things. You need to file a motion to dismiss due to lack of venue stipulating why you think the court does not have jurisdiction over the matter. The court can then either rule ex parte on your motion.... or schedule a hearing where both parties can present their jurisdiction arguments.

venue
n. 1) the proper or most convenient location for trial of a case. Normally, the venue in a criminal case is the judicial district or county where the crime was committed. For civil cases, venue is usually the district or county which is the residence of a principal defendant, where a contract was executed or is to be performed, or where an accident took place. However, the parties may agree to a different venue for convenience (such as where most witnesses are located). Sometimes a lawsuit is filed in a district or county which is not the proper venue, and if the defendant promptly objects (asks for a change of venue), the court will order transfer of the case to the proper venue.

Isn't there also a personal jurisdiction issue here?

If it occurred in Md and the Defendant lives in Maryland:

1) What provision of the DC long arm statute can the Plaintiff sue under (none as far as my review saw)?
and more importantly:

2) What minimum contacts did the defendant have with D.C. to be able to anticipate being haled into court there.

I'd appear specially, and file a motion to dismiss on the basis of no personal jurisdiction and lack of venue, making sure that I made it clear that I was not submitting to the jurisdiction of the court.

Sheesh, if the durn OP had just kept her kazillion posts together maybe we would not have a lawyer yelling at another lawyer.

Thanks Elliebean.

ENASNI said:

Sheesh, if the durn OP had just kept her kazillion posts together maybe we would not have a lawyer yelling at another lawyer.

Thanks Elliebean.

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And with that... it is clear that there are other facts provided... apparently in other posts.... so have deleted my 'yelling' response in this thread.