In a dispute between a Poughkeepsie, N.Y., man who sent his vintage Camaro to Pennsylvania for the installation of custom parts and the repairmen who allegedly took the car apart and failed to put it back together, a Brooklyn appellate panel has ruled that the repair shop’s “thoroughly passive” Web site does not, on its own, constitute grounds for personal jurisdiction in New York over the shop’s owner.
“If a Web site provides information, permits access to e-mail communication, describes the goods or services offered, downloads a printed order form, or allows online sales with the use of a credit card, and sales are, in fact, made, then the assertion of personal jurisdiction may be reasonable,” Justice Thomas A. Dickerson wrote for the unanimous panel in Grimaldi v. Guinn, 959/08.
