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Illinois Supreme Court Grants Jurisdiction to Sue French Company for Product Liability

The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled that French company SNFA can be sued in Illinois for product liability, even though it is not registered to do business in the state and there are no charges of wrongdoing in Illinois against the company.
On January 28, 2003, Michael Russell, an employee for Air Angels in Cook County, Illinois, died in a helicopter crash. He was the pilot and sole occupant of the chopper.

The deceased’s brother John Russell was named as an executor of the estate, and filed a lawsuit in this capacity against several defendants including SNFA. The lawsuit alleged that the failure of the drive-shaft bearings caused the drive shaft to fracture, which meant the tail rotor was inoperable and the helicopter spun out of control and crashed.
The helicopter was made by Agusta S.p.A, an Italian company. It was sold by a German company in 1998 to Metro Aviation in Louisiana, which in turn sold it to Air Angels.

The bearings in question were replaced in 2002 by Metro Aviation. They were made by SNFA in France, sold to Agusta in Italy, which in turn sold the bearings to its American subsidiary Agusta Aerospace Corporation, which then sold the bearings to Metro Aviation.

SNFA therefore claimed it had no customers in Illinois and asked the Circuit Court of Cook County to dismiss the lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds, which the court did. John Russell appealed, and a panel of the Sixth Division of the First Judicial District overturned the circuit court’s dismissal.

The Illinois Supreme Court issued a supervisory order asking the appeals court to reconsider their ruling, which they did and subsequently arrived at the same ruling again. An appeal was then filed by SNFA with the Illinois Supreme Court, which has now upheld the appellate court’s ruling that allows the circuit court personal jurisdiction to conduct a trial involving SNFA as a defendant.

Did you know?
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to grant states general jurisdiction over foreign companies in product liability cases.
In both J. McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro and in Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, the court ruled that the state in question could not have general jurisdiction over the foreign corporation solely because the “stream of commerce” brought their products to the state.