Farmers Win the Right to Repair Their Own Tractors in Colorado
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How enforceable is this? John Deere could say no, we're not going to provide any of these to Colorado since they are an Illinois company. Colorado would have to go after John Deere but.. who would be the focal point of that enforcement? John Deere retailers?
It's possible they might just pull out of Colorado... I don't see how Colorado could enforce this against a company HQ'd in Illinois.
I don't know anything about Colorado state law, but it sounds like the intent was to piggyback off of whatever existing enforcement capability the state has, instead of trying to invent something new.
> It's possible they might just pull out of Colorado
I think this might be suicide for them. For one thing, it would be a "mask off" moment for unconvinced observers and it might lead to snowballing negative public sentiment against them, which would accelerate right-to-repair movements in other states. Also, they can only pull out of so many states before it's no longer a viable move on their part. It's like Starbucks closing locations that unionize: locations can keep unionizing forever, but Starbucks can't keep closing stores forever.
I think the thats the win, even if incremental, is it extends beyond that. Its unlikely every tractor manufacturer will pull out of a market like that.
It also creates a visible precedent for other states. I am hopeful that this first step may provide headway for other states (IE California) to do this.
Pulling out entirely is one possible answer, but something less than that (like advertising and servicing without selling directly) could be enough to bring a company within the state's jurisdiction. The Supreme Court decided a similar case a couple years ago, Ford Motor Co. v. Montana. In that case Ford was selling in-state, but hadn't sold those particular vehicles there.
A comparison is the purchase of a vehicle. In 21 states, the manufacture of a vehicle can sell directly to the consumer. In the rest of the states, the law says that a manufacture is for bidden from selling directly to consumers. Yet people buy cars and bring them across state lines, all the time, whether they purchased it from the manufacturer or a dealer. If the point of sale occurs outside of Colorado, and John Deere has no corporate presents in Colorado, then I don't see how this is applicable.
Don't be so confident, then. I'm not either, but it doesn't take much looking around to see that the situation isn't as simple as corporate presence. A company can be subject to the state's jurisdiction for claims related to the contacts a company does have – and relatedness is not just a matter of directly causing harm or some other outcome. [0]
What you pointed out actually demonstrates that point: even though manufacturers aren't selling directly to consumers, they're still selling there via distributors, and are still subject to product liability suits, etc. The distributor doesn't shield them, in other words.
Here's what the Court said in Ford:
> Specific jurisdiction is different: It covers defendants less intimately connected with a State, but only as to a narrower class of claims. The contacts needed for this kind of jurisdiction often go by the name “purposeful availment.” Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 475 (1985). The defendant, we have said, must take “some act by which [it] purposefully avails itself of the privilege of conducting activities within the forum State.” Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U.S. 235, 253 (1958). The contacts must be the defendant’s own choice and not “random, isolated, or fortuitous.” Keeton v. Hustler Magazine, Inc., 465 U.S. 770, 774 (1984). They must show that the defendant deliberately “reached out beyond” its home—by, for example, “exploi[ting] a market” in the forum State or entering a contractual relationship centered there. Walden v. Fiore, 571 U.S. 277, 285 (2014) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted).
Whether only advertising could be enough hasn't been definitively settled, but it certainly could count as "purposeful availment" whereby the company "reache[s] out beyond its home" and seeks to "exploi[t] a market" in the state.
[0] https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt14-S1-7-1...
Or even changing options like the passenger seat seatbelt alarm (I often have heavy boxes or a dog jumping in my passenger seat so get this alarm a lot). You can ask a dealership to uncheck the box for that alarm, but you are entirely at their mercy and many will refuse.