01-3406 Wild v. Subscription Plus, Inc., et al.

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“[T]here is no absolute bar to the transfer of a multidefendant suit to a district in which one of the defendants cannot be served. But that leaves the question whether a defendant in a multidefendant suit who cannot be served can be forced to defend in the transferee district or, as most cases hold, must be severed from the rest of the suit and the suit against him either dismissed or (better, to avoid the running of the statute of limitations) transferred back to the district in which the suit was first filed or to a district in which service upon him is possible. Liaw Su Teng v. Skaarup Shipping Corp., 743 F.2d 1140, 1148 (5th Cir. 1984); Sharp Electronics Corp. v. Hayman Cash Register Co., 655 F.2d 1228, 1230 (D.C. Cir. 1981) (per curiam); Relf v. Gasch, 511 F.2d 804, 807-08 and n. 13 (D.C. Cir. 1975); Shutte v. Armco Steel Corp., supra, 431 F.2d at 24; 15 Wright, Miller & Cooper, supra, sec. 3845, pp. 351-53 (2d ed. 1986 & 2002 Supp.). The argument for the latter course, nowhere made in the notably sparse discussions in the cases, is that the transfer statutes do not purport to alter the rules governing personal jurisdiction; and of course the outer bounds of those rules are set by the Constitution. At all events, by dismissing Hillery from the suit, the district judge did what the case law permits.”

Affirmed.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, Crabb, J., Posner, J.