DOREL INDUSTRIES, INC. v. Superior Court

Plaintiff Jonathan Jackson III, a four-year-old child, was severely injured in a motor vehicle accident on December 11, 2003, in Santa Clara County, California. Jackson has filed a personal injury/product liability action against the manufacturer and distributor of the child booster seat he was riding in at the time of the accident, claiming the seat was defective. The defendants include Dorel Juvenile Group, Inc. (DJG), the company that designed, manufactured, and distributed the booster seat, and its grandparent corporation, Dorel Industries, Inc. (DI), a Canadian corporation.

In this statutory writ proceeding, DI challenges the trial court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over the corporation. DI contends that it is merely a grandparent corporation of DJG without sufficient ties to California and that the trial court erred when it found jurisdiction under the “representative services doctrine” and denied DI’s motion to quash service of summons. We conclude the exercise of jurisdiction was proper under the representative services doctrine and reasonable under the facts of this case and deny the writ petition.

Factual and Procedural History

I. Nature of Lawsuit and…