## Facts

- Michael Chalek, an Illinois sole proprietor, sold computer software through national magazine advertising and mail-order sales.
- Sam Lee (California) and Milton Klein (New York) each saw Chalek’s national magazine advertisements in their home states.
- Each defendant placed a single telephone order to Chalek in Illinois.
- Chalek shipped the software from Illinois; the products were delivered to defendants in their home states.
- Each defendant mailed a check to Illinois as payment.
- Neither defendant traveled to Illinois, negotiated special contract terms, inspected Chalek’s facilities, or formed an ongoing business relationship with Chalek.
- After receiving the software, each defendant returned it and stopped payment on the check.
- Chalek sued each defendant in Illinois state court seeking payment.

## Issues

1. Whether Illinois courts may exercise specific personal jurisdiction over nonresident consumers based solely on a single mail-order purchase initiated from outside Illinois in response to national advertising, where the buyer’s forum contacts are limited to placing an order and mailing payment to Illinois.

## Decision

- The Appellate Court of Illinois, Second District, affirmed dismissal of both actions for lack of personal jurisdiction.
- The court held that defendants’ isolated consumer transactions did not establish sufficient minimum contacts with Illinois under the long-arm statute and due process.
- The court concluded that exercising jurisdiction would be inconsistent with fair play and substantial justice because defendants did not purposefully avail themselves of conducting activities within Illinois.

## Legal Principles

- Specific personal jurisdiction requires minimum contacts created by the defendant’s conduct such that suit in the forum is foreseeable and consistent with traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.
- Purposeful availment is not shown where a nonresident consumer merely responds to a seller’s national advertising, places a standard order from the consumer’s home state, and remits payment by mail.
- A plaintiff’s forum-based business decisions (operating from the forum and advertising nationally) are unilateral acts that cannot supply the defendant-focused contacts required for jurisdiction.
- More active buyer conduct—such as dictating or vigorously negotiating contract terms or inspecting the seller’s facilities—can materially change the fairness and purposeful-availment analysis.
- Where the long-arm statute is applied coextensively with due process, failure to satisfy due process minimum-contacts requirements defeats the statutory basis for jurisdiction as well.

## Conclusion

Illinois courts could not assert personal jurisdiction over out-of-state consumers who made a single mail-order purchase after seeing national advertising and whose only Illinois-related acts were ordering by telephone and mailing payment, because those limited contacts did not constitute purposeful availment and made Illinois litigation unfair.


Chalek v. Klein, 550 N.E.2d 645 (Ill. App. Ct. 1990)