Rosmarie Kapferer v. Schlank & Schick GmbH

Schlank & Schick GmbH (Schlank) (defendant), a German mail-order company, sent Rosmarie Kapferer (plaintiff) a personally addressed letter that gave the impression that Kapferer had won a prize. Kapferer was a resident of Austria. Kapferer sued Schlank in an Austrian district court to claim the prize described in the letter, arguing that the Austrian court had jurisdiction to hear the case because community legislation granted jurisdiction to courts in a consumer’s state of domicile for consumer-contract cases. Schlank argued that the Austrian court lacked jurisdiction because a letter sent from one party to another does not suffice to form a contract, so no consumer contract existed to serve as a basis for the court’s jurisdiction. The Austrian district court decided that the court had jurisdiction to hear the case but ruled against Kapferer on the merits of the case. Kapferer appealed the ruling on the merits to the Austrian appeals court but did not appeal the district court holding that the district court had jurisdiction to hear the case. The court of appeals expressed concern that the district court’s ruling on jurisdiction violated community law. However, under Austrian law, only issues raised on appeal can be addressed by an appeals court. The Austrian court of appeals requested a preliminary ruling from the European Union Court of Justice on whether a national court in a European Union member state was required to set aside a final judicial decision of a court in that state if that decision infringed European Union law.