The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will reconsider a ruling from last year allowing an East Coast business to be sued in California, even though it has no stores there.
The jurisdictional hook, a three-judge panel held, was Maine retailer L.L. Bean's Web site, which the company uses to sell its wares worldwide.
Thursday's decision to take the case en banc was closely watched by practitioners in the still-developing realm of e-commerce law. The outcome will help settle disputes involving the myriad companies that post catalogs on the Internet and sell their products all over the world.