Diva Lawyers Social Club, Inc. v. Baker

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: December 3, 2025
• Docket: 24-5535
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEC 3 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

DIVA LAWYERS SOCIAL CLUB, INC., a No. 24-5535 California mutual benefits nonprofit D.C. No. corporation; Ms. ATYRIA S. CLARK 2:24-cv-01292-PA-MAR Esquire, Attorney,

Plaintiffs - Appellants, MEMORANDUM*

v.

LONITA K BAKER,

Defendant - Appellee,

and

DOES, 1-20, inclusive,

Defendant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Percy Anderson, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted November 20, 2025** Pasadena, California

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). Before: BYBEE, LEE, and DE ALBA, Circuit Judges.

Diva Lawyers Social Club, Inc. (“Diva Lawyers”) appeals the district court’s

dismissal of its lawsuit against Lonita Baker for lack of personal jurisdiction. We

have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.

The district court properly dismissed Diva Lawyers’ action for lack of

personal jurisdiction. Diva Lawyers does not attempt to show general jurisdiction

over Baker in California, so we address only specific jurisdiction. Because Diva

Lawyers has failed to allege sufficient facts showing that Baker has “purposefully

direct[ed] h[er] activities” toward the forum, her arguments fail under the first prong

of the Ninth Circuit’s specific jurisdiction test. Schwarzenegger v. Fred Martin

Motor Co., 374 F.3d 797, 802 (9th Cir. 2004). Baker is a Kentucky-based lawyer

whose passive website, social media accounts, and unrelated travel to California are

insufficient to establish personal jurisdiction. Baker runs a personal website and

social media—neither of which is monetized—and there is no showing that Baker

specifically targeted California or its residents through her online branding. See

Pebble Beach Co. v. Caddy, 453 F.3d 1151, 1158 (9th Cir. 2006) (“[A]n internet

domain name and passive website alone are not ‘something more,’ and, therefore,

alone are not enough to subject a party to jurisdiction.”) (citation omitted);

Panavision Int’l, L.P. v. Toeppen, 141 F.3d 1316, 1322 (9th Cir. 1998) (“[S]imply

registering someone else’s trademark as a domain name and posting a web site on

2 24-5535 the Internet is not sufficient to subject a party domiciled in one state to jurisdiction

in another.”). Because Baker’s website is, as a matter of law, passive, only

something more—such as an “insistent marketing campaign directed toward [the

forum]” as in Rio Props., Inc. v. Rio Int’l Interlink, 284 F.3d 1007, 1020 (9th Cir.

2002), or a “scheme to register . . . domain names for the purpose of extorting money

from [plaintiff]” as in Panavision Int’l, 141 F.3d at 1322—can establish sufficient

“minimum contacts” for personal jurisdiction. There is no such showing here: Diva

Lawyers identifies no California-specific content, individual targeting, extraction of

Californians’ personal data, product sales, solicitation of clients or any similar

actions designed to cultivate a California audience or expressly aimed at California.

Any California contacts are “random, fortuitous, or attenuated” and do not justify

personal jurisdiction. Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 475–76 (1985)

(internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

The district court also did not err in denying Diva Lawyers’ request for

jurisdictional discovery. Diva Lawyers has no viable route to establish personal

jurisdiction. Diva Lawyers seeks jurisdictional discovery into how Baker held

herself out as a Diva Attorney during her California trips. But further discovery

would be futile: The trips were unrelated to this suit and cannot show purposeful

direction or express aiming. See LNS Ents. LLC v. Cont’l Motors, Inc., 22 F.4th 852,

864–65 (9th Cir. 2022) (“[A] mere hunch that [discovery] might yield

3 24-5535 jurisdictionally relevant facts, or bare allegations in the face of specific denials, are

insufficient reasons for a court to grant jurisdictional discovery.”) (quotation marks

and citations omitted). Because Diva Lawyers has failed to put forth a viable theory

as to how Baker’s California trips would establish that she purposefully directed her

activity toward the forum, further discovery would not be helpful. The district

court’s denial of jurisdictional discovery was not an abuse of its discretion.

Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion by proceeding to the

merits of Baker’s motion despite violations of local rules. “We afford a high degree

of deference to local rules and to district court decisions which are designed to

delineate local practice and define the local rules.” Guam Sasaki Corp. v. Diana's

Inc., 881 F.2d 713, 715 (9th Cir. 1989). Although Baker violated several local rules,

including the requirements to meet and confer beforehand and to send notice to Diva

Lawyers, the district court opted to forgive these omissions and to proceed to the

merits anyway. The relevant rules are discretionary, not mandatory, and thus allow

a judge to consider a motion even if it does not comply. Further, Diva Lawyers

identifies no concrete prejudice from the district court’s approach: Baker

substantially corrected the errors, and Diva Lawyers was given extra time to respond.

Given our precedent granting district courts broad latitude to interpret and enforce

their local rules and the lack of prejudice, we defer to the district court’s chosen

disciplinary methods in this case.

4 24-5535 AFFIRMED.

5 24-5535