By suing Dr. Phil for defamation in California, two Surinamese brothers may have given their “implied consent” to being sued for wrongful death in the same jurisdiction by the parents of missing Alabama teen Natalee Holloway.

Deepak and Satish Kalpoe were investigated in Holloway's disappearance while she was on a class trip to the Caribbean island of Aruba. They were seen leaving a nightclub with Holloway and a Dutch national, Joran van der Sloot.

Holloway's parents previously filed a wrongful-death suit in New York against van der Sloot, but a judge dismissed the case, declining jurisdiction over a dispute with no “substantial connection” to New York. But could the Kalpoes have stumbled into a jurisdictional trap of their own making?

“We hope to capitalize on the Kalpoes' decision to utilize the California courts in a frivolous claim for compensation, and give Natalee's parents the closure they need and deserve,” the parents' attorney, John Q. Kelly, said.

In a suit filed Dec. 13 in Los Angeles Superior Court, the Kalpoe brothers accused Dr. Phil and the producers of his talk show of falsely portraying them “as being involved in the murder of Natalee Holloway.”

A day later, however, Beth Holloway Twitty and Dave Holloway sued the Kalpoes in the same court, accusing them of being the “legal cause of the fatal injuries sustained by Deceased Natalee Holloway.” And they argue that the libel action gives California “personal jurisdiction” over the brothers as defendants in the wrongful-death action.

The Kalpoes “impliedly consented to the jurisdiction of this Court ... by filing and commencing an action in this Court seeking damages for claims arising from and related to the subject matter, events, occurrences and transactions upon which Plaintiffs' action is based,” the complaint states.

In 1991, the 1st U.S. Circuit of Appeals broke new ground by allowing personal jurisdiction over a defendant who has commenced a separate action before the same court relating to “the same transaction or occurrence.”

There would be an “unjust symmetry,” the court said in General Contracting & Trading v. Interpole, 940 F.2d 20 (1991), if a party was able to

enjoy the full benefits of access to a state's courts qua plaintiff, while nonetheless retaining immunity from the courts' authority qua defendant in respect to claims asserted by the very party it was suing.

A California appeals court followed that precedent in Nobel Farms v. Pasero, 106 Cal.App.4th 654 (2003), ruling that “jurisdiction may exist if the defendant has purposefully availed itself of forum benefits or the controversy is related to or arises out of the defendant's contacts with the forum.”

The Kalpoes claim Dr. Phil is liable for material aired on the Sept. 15, 2005 episode of his show. The broadcast prompted Twitty to go on national TV and urge Aruban authorities to reopen their investigation of the Holloway case.

According to Holloway's parents, the Kalpoes' libel action is based "in substantial part" on statements made by Twitty in those TV interviews, “all of which relate to the events which are the subject of this [wrongful-death] action.”

In Nobel Farms, however, a legal malpractice suit arose from an attorney fee dispute between the same parties. Interpole granted jurisdiction in a business fraud case brought by "the very party" that the defendant had sued.

It seems like a stretch to argue that the claims of Holloway's parents are related to a libel suit in which they are not parties and that anything to do with their daughter's disappearance arises out of the "same transaction."

By Matthew Heller
12/16/06