Venue selection and torts explored in ‘Windy City Rehab’ case

Trial Notebook

By Steven P. Garmisa

Hoey & Farina

Posted November 23, 2021 11:06 AM

The agreement that renovation contractor Thomas Donovan Eckhardt Jr. signed with Big Table Media and HGTV when he appeared in “Windy City Rehab” included choice of law and forum selection provisions that called for applying California law; gave California “exclusive personal jurisdiction”; picked Sacramento as the venue for litigation; and waived any objections “to lack of jurisdiction and/or inconvenient forum.”When he sued them in Chicago for allegedly defaming him and intentionally inflicting emotional distress by …

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