Adams v. Raintree Vacation Exchange
United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
702 F.3d 436 (2012)
Facts
Several hundred individuals (buyers) (plaintiffs) paid Desarrollos Turisticos Regina, S. de R.L. de C.V. (DTR) for timeshare interests in Mexican vacation villas that DTR had yet to build. Each buyer signed a purchase contract that contained a forum-selection clause requiring any dispute to be litigated in Mexico. DTR subsequently sold out to a corporate subsidiary of Raintree Vacation Exchange, LLC (Raintree) (defendant). The villas were never built. The buyers accused Raintree of conspiring with Starwood Vacation Ownership, Inc. (Starwood) (defendant) to defraud the buyers by taking the buyers’ money and using it to repay Raintree’s debt to Starwood. The buyers sued Raintree and Starwood in a United States federal district court. Raintree and Starwood invoked the DTR contracts’ forum clauses and argued that any such suit must be filed in a Mexican court. The district court granted the companies’ motion to dismiss the case. The buyers’ appeal to the Seventh Circuit centered on the fact that neither Raintree nor Starwood was signatory to the DTR contract.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Posner, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 710,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 44,600 briefs, keyed to 983 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.
