Harlan & Cimoszewicz v. Wprost

How do you defend a claim brought against you in Montevideo, Uruguay? Even if the foreign jurisdiction is internally perfectly fair as regards due process. For an individual Polish citizen, probably there are some jurisdictions which are at least presumably too exotic to guarantee fair play and right to defense, even if he/she has been correctly served with the law suit. As regards U.S., the procedures differ substantially, and litigation is much more costly. Having said that I don’t really see this argument fly as regards a big corporate defendant sued in Chicago.

 

Second, and more specifically as regards the facts in this case, Polish courts will have to scrutinize whether the defendant’s claim that there was no effective service, holds water. If there was lack of service, objection by Wprost seems reasonable. (According to another newspaper, Wprost has been served).

 

Speaking more generally, in course of such enforcement, an interesting thing can be the interplay between the insistence of the Polish courts to guarantee the right to defense, and what American courts understand under related notions of fair play and substantial justice.  As we can see in the South Carolina decision above, American courts pay attention not to extend their jurisdiction in a way that jeopardizes fair play or substantial justice. Thus, if there were ideal synchronization between American and Polish courts, the American courts would not extend their jurisdiction beyond the line of what the Polish courts could find as infringement of the right to defense.  There are two caveats to be made here:

• It is likely that differences in the legal culture will expose in some cases the lack of synchronization between the Polish right to defense and the American fair play and substantial justice.
• The Keeton standard arises from matters that are inter-state but not international. I think there is difference in being a defendant in another state and in another country, the latter being usually more expensive and difficult.

2. Punitive damages. European jurisdictions have a history of skeptical approach towards this measure. E.g. see the New York Times account on Germany and Italy. Some jurisdiction in Europe do not like the idea that punitive damages are punitive, i.e. serve repression of the defendant instead of restitution for the injured party.