Echard v. Townsend Farms Inc.

992 F. Supp. 2d 958, 2014 WL 243141, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9242
CourtDistrict Court, D. Arizona
DecidedJanuary 17, 2014
DocketNo. CV-13-01146-PHX-NVW
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 992 F. Supp. 2d 958 (Echard v. Townsend Farms Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Arizona primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Echard v. Townsend Farms Inc., 992 F. Supp. 2d 958, 2014 WL 243141, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9242 (D. Ariz. 2014).

Opinion

ORDER

NEIL V. WAKE, District Judge.

Before the Court is Specially Appearing Defendant Purely Pomegranate, Inc.’s Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Personal Jurisdiction (Doc. 47). On the facts alleged, E chard has not established that Purely Pomegranate is subject to the personal jurisdiction of the courts of Arizona. Echard will be given an opportunity, however, to conduct discovery limited to facts supporting specific jurisdiction. Similarly, Purely Pomegranate will be given an opportunity to file supplemental briefing to test the benefit of that discovery.

Purely Pomegranate is a California business. Sometime before May 2013, it imported Turkish pomegranate seeds and sold them to Defendant Townsend Farms. Townsend Farms used them to manufacture a frozen drink product, which it sold to Costco for retail. Plaintiff E chard alleges that the hepatitis A virus contaminated the drink product she purchased from Costco and that the virus infected [960]*960her when she consumed it. See Doc. 35 ¶¶2, 3, 9, 15; Doc. 53 at 3. She sued Townsend Farms and three pomegranate seed distributors, including Purely Pomegranate. Purely Pomegranate moves to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction.

A plaintiff bears the initial burden of establishing personal jurisdiction when a defendant moves to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2). Schwarzenegger v. Fred Martin Motor Co., 374 F.3d 797, 800 (9th Cir.2004). Because the motion to dismiss is based on written materials rather than an evidentiary hearing, Echard need only make a prima facie showing of personal jurisdiction. Holland Am. Line Inc. v. Wartsila N. Am., Inc., 485 F.3d 450, 457 n. 5 (9th Cir.2007).

In the absence of an applicable federal statute, Arizona law governs the exercise of personal jurisdiction and extends jurisdiction to the extent allowed by the federal Due Process Clause. See Arizona Rule of Civil Procedure 4.2(a). In turn, due process requires that defendants have sufficient contacts with the forum state “such that the maintenance of the suit does not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.” Int’l Shoe Co. v. State of Wash., Office of Unemployment Comp. & Placement, 326 U.S. 310, 316, 66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945) (internal quotation marks omitted). A defendant’s contacts may subject it to the so-called general or specific jurisdiction of a forum. J. McIntyre Mach., Ltd. v. Nicastro, — U.S.-, 131 S.Ct. 2780, 2787-88, 180 L.Ed.2d 765 (2011) (plurality opinion).

Echard concedes Purely Pomegranate is not subject to the general jurisdiction of Arizona courts. Doc. 53 at 6. Thus, the issue is whether Purely Pomegranate’s contacts with Arizona suffice to bring it within the forum’s specific jurisdiction. The Ninth Circuit uses a three-part test to determine specific jurisdiction:

(1) The non-resident defendant must purposefully direct his activities or consummate some transaction with the forum or resident thereof; or perform some act by which he purposefully avails himself of the privilege of conducting activities in the forum, thereby invoking the benefits and protections of its laws;
(2) the claim must be one which arises out of or relates to the defendant’s forum-related activities; and
(3) the exercise of jurisdiction must comport with fair play and substantial justice, i.e. it must be reasonable.

Schwarzenegger, 374 F.3d at 802.

With respect to the first requirement, “[i]n products-liability cases like this one, it is the defendant’s purposeful availment that makes jurisdiction consistent with traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.” Nicastro, 131 S.Ct. at 2787 (internal quotation marks omitted). “The placement of a product into the stream of commerce, without more, is not an act purposefully directed toward a forum state.... Even a defendant’s awareness that the stream of commerce may or will sweep the product into the forum state does not convert the mere act of placing the product into the stream of commerce into an act purposefully directed toward the forum state.” Holland Am. Line Inc., 485 F.3d at 459. Instead, a plaintiff must allege additional conduct “indieat[ing] an intent or purpose to serve the market in the forum State.” Asahi Metal Indus. Co., Ltd. v. Superior Court of California, Solano Cnty., 480 U.S. 102, 112, 107 S.Ct. 1026, 94 L.Ed.2d 92 (1987) (plurality opinion).

On the facts alleged, Echard has not made a prima facie showing that Purely Pomegranate purposefully availed itself [961]*961of the privilege of conducting activities in Arizona. Purely Pomegranate arranged for pomegranate seeds to be shipped to Townsend Farms, an Oregon company. Townsend Farms used those seeds to manufacture a product that it sold to Costco, a Washington company. And then Costco retailed that product “across the western United States” and “possibly ... across the country.” Doc. 35 ¶ 9. It is not enough that Purely Pomegranate was “aware that its seeds would be used to manufacture a final product that would be retailed through Costco stores across the country, including stores in Arizona.” Doc. 53 at 12. Nor is it sufficient that Purely Pomegranate intended to sell its products everywhere and did nothing to exclude Arizona. See Doe. 53 at 10 (“Purely Pomegranate stores its products across the country and advertises its capacity to promptly and reliably deliver its products throughout the entire country; Arizona is not excluded.”).

The Supreme Court recently rejected a similarly expansive application of specific jurisdiction. The New Jersey Supreme Court had concluded that its courts could “exercise jurisdiction over a foreign manufacturer of a product so long as the manufacturer knows or reasonably should know that its products are distributed through a nationwide distribution system that might lead to those products being sold in any of the fifty states.” Nicastro, 131 S.Ct. at 2785 (internal quotation marks omitted). In formulating a more restrictive test, a plurality of the Court noted that “it is the defendant’s actions, not his expectations, that empower a State’s courts to subject him to judgment,” id. at 2789, and concluded that “[t]he defendant’s transmission of goods permits the exercise of jurisdiction only where the defendant can be said to have targeted the forum; as a general rule, it is not enough that the defendant might have predicted that its goods will reach the forum State.” Id. at 2788 (emphasis added). Although this restrictive “targeting” test did not persuade a majority of the Court, two Justices joined the plurality in reversing the New Jersey Supreme Court because “the relevant facts found by the New Jersey Supreme Court show[ed] no ‘regular ... flow’ or ‘regular course’ of sales in New Jersey; and there [was] no ‘something more,’ such as special state-related design, advertising, advice, marketing, or anything else.” Nicastro, 131 S.Ct. at 2792 (Breyer, J., concurring).

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Bluebook (online)
992 F. Supp. 2d 958, 2014 WL 243141, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9242, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/echard-v-townsend-farms-inc-azd-2014.