Suna Lee

Gregg Tatarka (Partner-White Plains, NY) ​Suna Lee (Of Counsel-Madison, NJ) and Samantha Marrelli (Associate-White Plains, NY) prevailed on a motion to dismiss in Bergen County Superior Court, New Jersey, on behalf of Wilson Elser’s global consumer electronics company client. In this product liability case, the plaintiff, a North Carolina corporation, filed a lawsuit in New Jersey against our client and a national lease-to-own retailer. The plaintiff alleged that its insureds, Missouri residents, sustained damage to their Missouri property from a 2024 fire caused by an allegedly defective product​ supplied by our client and the codefendant retailer.

Although the alleged incident, property damage, insureds, and all fact witnesses – including those involved in the fire investigation and subsequent inspection and repair – were located in Missouri, the plaintiff filed suit in New Jersey, relying primarily on the state being our client’s principal place of business. However, the plaintiff’s causes of action were based in Missouri case law. In lieu of filing an answer, Suna and Samantha moved to dismiss under forum non conveniens, demonstrating that New Jersey had no meaningful connection to the dispute and that Missouri was the appropriate forum.

In their reply to the plaintiff and codefendant’s opposition to the motion, which proved paramount to winning the case by distinguishing between the facts and the claimed case law, Suna and Samantha underscored that the plaintiff is a North Carolina corporation, the plaintiff’s insureds are Missouri residents, and Wilson Elser’s client is a New York corporation with a principal place of business in New Jersey. Additionally, they emphasized the absence of any reported decision, permitting a non-resident plaintiff to pursue out-of-state claims under that state's law, surviving a forum non conveniens challenge.

The court agreed and dismissed the action with prejudice, sparing our client from litigating a Missouri-based loss in an improper forum.

Suna Lee (Of Counsel-Madison, NJ) was granted a Motion to Dismiss this case in its entirety for lack of personal jurisdiction without the need for jurisdictional discovery following extensive briefing and oral argument in Union County Superior Court. Suna represented a valve manufacturer. The third-party plaintiff, a plumbing company that installed a toilet with a valve alleged to have caused extensive property damage in a commercial building located in New Jersey, filed a Third-Party Complaint against our client, who supplied the valve, alleging the valve was defective. Our client, incorporated under the laws of Delaware and headquartered in Illinois, sold the valve to the toilet manufacturer – a Wisconsin company – and shipped it to its warehouse in Texas.  Accordingly, in lieu of an Answer, Suna moved for dismissal of all claims based on our client’s lack of minimum contacts. The court agreed with Suna that recent Supreme Court jurisprudence limited general jurisdiction and rejected the stream of commerce theory argued by the plaintiff’s counsel and further agreed that jurisdictional discovery was not warranted given the absence of a prima facie case of jurisdiction. The alleged property damage to the commercial building totaled approximately $500,000 and the action involved numerous defendants engaging in extensive litigation and motion practice.