Thanks Carol and Chris.

Simply put, a court in Louisiana, small claims or not and absent special circumstances, does not have any jurisdiction over a company in any other State. Otherwise, the result would be chaos.

We learned in law school that one should not get one’s ego involved in one’s legal reasoning. You might consider this before you offer “expert” legal advice that is fundamentally and completely wrong.

Finally, regarding your suggestion about legal fees, surely you know that “The rules of civil procedure and sometimes evidence are typically altered and simplified in order to make the procedures economical: one guiding principle usually operating in these courts is that individuals ought to be able to conduct their own cases and represent themselves without recourse to a lawyer.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_claims_court)

Regarding the “Jurisdiction and Venue” section, surely you’re aware that there’s no such section in the Orleans Parish Small Claims form? All you fill out is your information, the defendant’s information, and a very short description of why you’re suing them. (It may have changed since my last successful suit, but I suspect not.)

Nope. Before a court can accept a case, it must have both personal jurisdiction and subject-matter jurisdiction over the defendant (and must also be the proper venue). Unless the motel in question has the required “minimum contact” with Louisiana, the LA Court has absolutely no authority over a company in Alabama. Even if brox sued in Federal court, the suit would have to be filed in a Federal District Court in Alabama to obtain personal jurisdiction over the motel.

This one of the fundamentals of the Civil Procedure course that all law students must take during their first (1L) year. If your law professor didn’t teach you this in your Civil Procedure course, you should complain. Both my CP course and all of my trial courses emphasized this point. Did yours?

Jedd, what you are suggesting is called Abuse of Legal Process. By following your advice, brox could have a golden opportunity to have his case summarily dismissed, to pay the motel’s legal fees (that could be rather large for defending an out-of-state lawsuit), and to pay sanctions to the court. In addition, the judgment, if obtained, would have to be filed in Alabama to be of any use.

When you filed your lawsuits, what did you put in the “Jursidiction and Venue” section of the Complaint? Surely you didn’t mislead the court, did you?

Regarding Brenda’s claim that the court will not have jurisdiction – again, this is incorrect, in my experience. Most companies of a certain size (bigger is better) do not like to have judgments against them, particularly default judgments, no matter where. Judgments can, in fact, be transferred to another state once they have been properly recorded.

Overall, the point of the small claims filing is to get their attention. While it’s easier for a company to ignore your phone calls and letters, in my personal experience, a court filing most definitely gets their attention and brings them to the negotiating table. Most likely, they will hire a Louisiana attorney to settle the matter. Again, this is based on my filing a couple suits against out of state companies; both times there was a very satisfactory conclusion.

But here’s something I heard recently – that hotels treat their “online” guests (i.e those who book on the internet or through a service) like crap. They treat the phone-in booking guests the best. I heard that when there’s a room shortage, they’ll boot the online guests first (it has to do with getting lower total remuneration for the online stays, due to fees paid to the online service). So I’ve been making it my practice to search rates online, and then to call and actually book a hotel by phone.

That’s what I did with the Royal Sonesta in N.O. – can’t wait for that trip coming up!!

Unless you want to sue in Alabama (and I doubt that you want to spend the time), I suggest filing a complaint with the Consumer Protection division of the Alabama Attorney General’s office. A letter from the AG asking for their side of the story usually gets their attention.

In addition to Schliefnet’s suggestion to contact the BBB, you might copy your AG complaint to their local Chamber of Commerce.

I’ve used Small Claims. The filing fee is $75. The company will have to be served. If they’re in Orleans parish, that costs $20 extra dollars. Getting them served outside Orleans parish will be even more complicated.