It may be “Aruba or bust” for the parents of Natalee Holloway after a Los Angeles judge ruled he had no jurisdiction over their wrongful-death suit against two Surinamese brothers.

Deepak Kalpoe

Holloway, who was 18 at the time, disappeared while on a class trip to Aruba in May 2005. With the criminal investigation apparently stalled, her parents have been trying to find a venue in the U.S. for a civil action.

In the Los Angeles case, they sued Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, who were seen leaving an Aruba nightclub with Holloway and a Dutch national, Joran van der Sloot, shortly before her disappearance. The Kalpoes, they argued, had impliedly “consented” to California jurisdiction by filing a defamation suit against Dr. Phil in the same court a day earlier.

But at a hearing last week, Superior Court Judge Charles C. Lee granted the Kalpoes' motion to quash, which argued that the two cases “clearly do not arise from the same or substantially identical events.”

“[P]laintiffs attempt to bootstrap jurisdiction by alleging Deepak and Satish 'consented' to jurisdiction in California through the filing of an unrelated defamation lawsuit,” the motion said.

The Kalpoes claim Dr. Phil and the producers of his talk show falsely portrayed them “as being involved in the murder of Natalee Holloway.” The judge in that case ruled in February it was not “related” to the wrongful-death action under court rules that allow cases to be combined for efficiency reasons.

Holloway's parents have now struck out on both coasts, a New York judge having declined jurisdiction last year over their suit against van der Sloot. “[T]he courts of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, of which Aruba is a constituent part, have been found to present an appropriate alternative forum in which to bring suit,” Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Barbara R. Kapnick said.

Beth Twitty and Dave Holloway believe they stand no chance of justice in Aruba's courts. But that forum may now be the only one available to them.

By Matthew Heller
6/3/07