## Facts

- David and Alma Griffin and other travelers were injured when a van transporting them from the Cancún, Mexico airport to their hotel crashed.
- The airport-to-hotel transportation was included in a vacation package the travelers purchased in Wisconsin from The Mark Travel Corporation.
- The van was owned by Viajes Turquesa del Caribe Mexicano, S.A. de C.V., doing business as Lomas Travel (Viajes Turquesa), and the driver was its employee.
- The plaintiffs sued Mark Travel, Mark Travel’s insurer (Connecticut Indemnity Company), and Viajes Turquesa in Milwaukee County Circuit Court.
- Mexico is a party to the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters (Hague Service Convention).
- The plaintiffs attempted to serve Viajes Turquesa in Mexico. Service was carried out by Maria Eli Lopez Reyes, a Mexican attorney and notary, on a Viajes Turquesa representative in Mexico.
- Viajes Turquesa moved to dismiss for insufficient service of process, arguing that the method used did not satisfy Mexico’s procedures and declarations under the Hague Service Convention.
- The circuit court denied the motion to dismiss. As an alternative basis, it concluded that even if service were defective, the time for service would have been tolled.
- Viajes Turquesa appealed, challenging the validity of service.

## Issues

1. Whether the plaintiffs’ service of the Wisconsin summons and complaint on Viajes Turquesa in Mexico satisfied the Hague Service Convention as implemented through Mexican law, making service valid for purposes of proceeding in Wisconsin.

## Decision

- The Wisconsin Court of Appeals affirmed the circuit court’s denial of Viajes Turquesa’s motion to dismiss for insufficient service of process.
- The court held that the plaintiffs’ service in Mexico was valid under the Hague Service Convention as applied through Mexican law.
- Because valid service resolved the appeal, the court did not reach the circuit court’s alternative tolling determination, deciding the case on the narrowest dispositive ground.

## Legal Principles

- When service of process must be made in a foreign country that is a Hague Service Convention signatory, the Convention governs the permissible methods of service.
- Valid service under the Convention turns on whether service was carried out in a manner permitted by the receiving state’s law and the receiving state’s Convention declarations.
- A Wisconsin court may proceed against a foreign defendant once the defendant has been properly served abroad in a Convention-compliant manner.
- Appellate courts generally resolve appeals on the dispositive issue and may decline to address alternative rulings unnecessary to the result.

## Conclusion

The court of appeals affirmed the order denying dismissal, concluding that the plaintiffs’ service on Viajes Turquesa in Mexico was effective under the Hague Service Convention and Mexican law; having found service valid, it did not address the circuit court’s alternative tolling ruling.


Griffin v. Mark Travel Corp., 2006 WI App 213, 296 Wis. 2d 642, 724 N.W.2d 900 (2006)