Have minimum contacts been established?

[stebbinsd]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Federal

There is an EEOC claim I need to raise against someone. I am not supposed to be covered by civil rights laws, due to the job I was denied being an independent contractor. However, due to the new precedent set by the case of Brown v. J. Kaz, Inc. (the parent company of Craftmatic adjustable beds), I am, so don't try and talk me out of it.

The company resided in Florida. I constantly emailed them, and they never returned my emails. Finally, I emailed the company on Myspace and told them:

Dear [owner] and [owner],

I sent you an email a few months ago, asking you if a poor reference from [anonymous previous employer] would affect your decision to let me in to your company as well?

That was several months ago. You do not have to go out of your way to refuse me for this reason; simply ignoring this email will cause me to put two and two together. If this email is ignored, I'll assume, even if I'm wrong, that [anonymous previous employer] did give you a bad reference due to my Aspergers.

Ignoring this email will constitute your agreement to the above paragraphs.

Sincerely,
MY NAME

In the last sentence in the second paragraph, you can clearly see that I have informed them of the disability that caused me to fall out of favor with this other employer (let's call him Steve). At the time, it was legal for Steve to fire me, due to me only being an independent contractor. However, in this particular business, the conditions have been met for me to now be considered an employer (the people paying me money to work for them dictate the time, place, and manner of the work performed, due to their superior bargaining power). I have also warned them that failure to respond to this message to give me even a retarded reason (e.g. "My brother's ex wife had your last name, and she took half his ****.") would constitute their agreement that everything in the above two paragraphs was true (that, yes, I did email them a few months ago, that yes, they did ignore it, and that yes, the REASON they ignored it was because of this bad reference from Steve). Therefore, if even one part of it wasn't true, they should have responded and corrected these misconceptions.

All I ever did was send them a few emails, and they ignored them. Therefore, I never signed any contract with them whatsoever, meaning no limitation of liability, and no personal jurisdiction clauses (they're located in Orlando, and I'm in the Central time zone).

However, would the fact that I sent the final email to them on myspace, a social networking site where people from all over the world, not just all over the nation, can communicate in the blink of an eye, would that mean that minimum contacts have been established, and I can now sue them on my home turf, not in Orlando?

What do you think?

 

[You Are Guilty]

I think you're peeing into the wind.

 

[HappyWanderer]

To the question asked, I must answer, it is not relevant. You're talking jurisdiction with the test and the federal courts (if your theory is correct) will have jurisdiction as a federal question. Venue would be the proper question. There, the answer is no. Even then you have the problem as stated below.

If you're looking to sue in state court for a federal civil rights issue where you are going to have to play fancy law to get past even some basic questions, it's time for a GOOD attorney. Not just an attorney, a GOOD one. Else, see You Are Guilty as the tobacco juice which could fly right back in your eye (I like a spit over piss analogy.) is, many civil rights suits have a loser pays for frivolous claims statutes.

 

[Mass_Shyster]

Interesting theory, but you seem to have mixed up a few concepts.

Personal Jurisdiction can be waived by failing to raise the issue in the "first defensive move", so if the defendant's answer does not deny personal jurisdiction, they have waived it. The plaintiff's actions (posting on myspace) cannot confer personal jurisdiction on the defendant.

You also seem to be trying to invoke assent by silence, the foremost case being Russel v Texas Co. Russel sent a letter to Texas Co indicating that he would be willing to lease some land to Texas Co, and the price would be X. Texas Co never replied, but continued using the land. The court found that they has assented by silence. This is distinguishable from your case because they continued taking some action detrimental to the plaintiff. Although in your case, you can argue that their inaction may have been detrimental to you, it was inaction, and not action. They have a right to ignore you, and no duty to respond to your requests/wishes/demands.

If, as you stated, your only contact with the defendant was a few emails, it does not appear that you were either an independent contractor nor an employee, but merely an applicant or a bidder on a job.

 

[HappyWanderer]

Stevef is correct in specific, but is missing a basic point. If the lawsuit is federal, would a federal court have personal jurisdiction (Which, is what the test of minimum contacts is for.) over a company in Florida?

Unless the OP is suing on the federal question in state court, the test is irrelevant. Venue would be the question in federal court (Where the OP seems to want this based on the state listed.) and venue is more of a hierarchic list than a minimum contacts test.

He does point out one of the problems of assent by silence, but there are many problems here. The conceptual issue is show by You Are Guilty's tag line.

I also agree with Stevef's final line. The facts we know seem to indicate no real relationship to the issues brought up in the case cited by the OP.

The bottom line is there are so many problems with this that no Pro per could get through the maze successfully. Even if there were a case in the penumbra of current law (I said IF.), it would have to be prosecuted by a skilled attorney with experience in employment civil rights issues for any chance of success. When one fools around on the outlying areas of the law when one is talking about civil rights, there is real risk as that's where the rare concept of "loser pays" comes up in the United States. I'm not even sure of the damages here and don't see a large number--making the required skilled attorney less likely to take the case.