Calabrian Corporation v. Alliance Specialty Chemicals

This court holds that the trial court erred by granting a non-resident defendant’s special appearance because the nonresident defendant is collaterally estopped from relitigating personal jurisdiction. The majority grounds its holding upon a federal district court’s personal-jurisdiction ruling in a 1998 lawsuit involving different claims. The trial court did not err because (1) the plaintiff did not present sufficient evidence to meet its burden of establishing that collateral estoppel applies; and (2) the personal-jurisdiction issue actually litigated in the 1998 lawsuit is not identical to…