Background
Plaintiffs appealed a district court order dismissing their claim against Fenix International Limited under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure twelve comma B two for lack of personal jurisdiction. The district court had concluded that Fenix lacked personal jurisdiction over it in California.
The court’s reasoning
The court reviewed the district court’s determination de novo and applied a three-prong test for specific personal jurisdiction. The court focused on the purposeful direction test, which requires an intentional act expressly aimed at the forum state that causes harm the defendant knows will be suffered there. The court found that Fenix’s over ten thousand California subscriptions and four hundred million dollars in annual revenue were not random, isolated, or fortuitous but part of its regular course of business. The court rejected Fenix’s argument that Plaintiffs waived the purposeful direction argument and declined to address forum non conveniens arguments in the first instance.
What it means going forward
The decision clarifies that substantial revenue and a large number of subscriptions from a state can satisfy the expressly aimed element of the purposeful direction test for personal jurisdiction in consumer protection cases.