Smarthealth Incorporated v. Chemotechnique MB Diagnostics AB

CourtDistrict Court, D. Arizona
DecidedJune 17, 2025
Docket2:25-cv-00115
StatusUnknown

This text of Smarthealth Incorporated v. Chemotechnique MB Diagnostics AB (Smarthealth Incorporated v. Chemotechnique MB Diagnostics AB) 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
Smarthealth Incorporated v. Chemotechnique MB Diagnostics AB, (D. Ariz. 2025).

Opinion

1 WO 2 3 4 5 6 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

9 Smarthealth Incorporated, No. CV-25-00115-PHX-JJT

10 Plaintiff, ORDER

11 v.

12 Chemotechnique MB Diagnostics AB, et al.,

13 Defendants.

14 15 At issue is Plaintiff SmartHealth Incorporated’s Motion to Allow Limited 16 Jurisdictional Discovery (Doc. 19, Motion), to which Defendants Chemotechnique MB 17 Diagnostics AB (“Chemotechnique”) and Dormer Laboratories Incorporated (“Dormer”) 18 filed a Response (Doc. 26, Response) and Plaintiff filed a Reply (Doc. 27, Reply). The 19 Court finds this matter appropriate for resolution without oral argument. See LRCiv 7.2(f). 20 For the reasons set forth below, the Court grants Plaintiff’s Motion. 21 I. Background 22 Chemotechnique, a Swedish entity, filed a motion to dismiss Plaintiff’s claims 23 against it for lack of personal jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2). 24 (See Doc. 12.) Within the responsive timeline for that motion, Plaintiff filed the instant 25 Motion, wherein Plaintiff argues that it must be permitted to conduct limited jurisdictional 26 discovery if it is to meaningfully respond to Chemotechnique’s jurisdictional motion. 27 Plaintiff also sought a stay of the briefing deadlines for Chemotechnique’s jurisdictional 28 motion, which the Court granted. (See Doc. 22.) Separately, Defendants sought a stay of 1 all discovery in this case pending resolution of Chemotechnique’s jurisdictional motion 2 and Dormer’s 12(b)(6) motion, which stay the Court granted. (See Doc. 25.) The Court 3 must now decide whether to amend the stay of discovery for the purpose of permitting the 4 limited jurisdictional discovery sought by Plaintiff. 5 Chemotechnique’s jurisdictional motion is supported by 134 pages of attached 6 documentation purportedly showing that Chemotechnique’s contacts with Arizona and the 7 United States are insufficient to support personal jurisdiction in this forum or any other 8 forum in the nation. (See Doc. 12-1.) Plaintiff’s argument, reduced to its essence, is that 9 this documentation is incomplete and fails to paint a sufficiently holistic picture of 10 Chemotechnique’s contacts with Arizona and the United States. (See Motion at 2 (“For 11 example, the declaration fails to address the sales volume of Chemotechnique products into 12 the forums, only selectively addresses Chemotechnique’s contacts, does not fully describe 13 the extent of its relationships with and support of American professional societies and other 14 groups located in the United States, and in many cases is controverted by publicly available 15 information.”).) 16 Plaintiff seeks relief in the form of an Order permitting it to “issue written discovery 17 requests and take a deposition narrowly tailored to the nature, frequency and scope of 18 Chemotechnique’s contacts with the forums and to respond to the assertions in the 19 declaration submitted by Chemotechnique.” (Motion at 3.) 20 II. Legal Standard 21 District courts are “vested with broad discretion to permit or deny discovery,” and 22 “discovery should ordinarily be granted where pertinent facts bearing on the question of 23 jurisdiction are controverted or where a more satisfactory showing of the facts is 24 necessary.” Laub v. U.S. Dep’t of Interior, 342 F.3d 1080, 1093 (9th Cir. 2003) (quoting 25 Butcher’s Union Loc. No. 498 v. SDC Inv., Inc., 788 F.2d 535, 540 (9th Cir. 1986)). “Where 26 a plaintiff’s claim of personal jurisdiction appears to be both attenuated and based on bare 27 allegations in the face of specific denials made by the defendants, the Court need not permit 28 even limited discovery.” Pebble Beach Co. v. Caddy, 453 F.3d 1151, 1160 (9th Cir. 2006) 1 (quoting Terracom v. Valley Nat. Bank, 49 F.3d 555, 562 (9th Cir.1995)). “Although a 2 refusal to grant discovery to establish jurisdiction is not an abuse of discretion when ‘it is 3 clear that further discovery would not demonstrate facts sufficient to constitute a basis for 4 jurisdiction,’ discovery should be granted when . . . the jurisdictional facts are contested or 5 more facts are needed.” Laub, 342 F.3d at 1093 (quoting Wells Fargo & Co. v. Wells Fargo 6 Express Co., 556 F.2d 406, 430 n.24 (9th Cir.1977)). 7 The crux of any dispute over the propriety of limited jurisdictional discovery is 8 whether the party seeking discovery has “provid[ed] an explanation of how discovery 9 might change the outcome of the Court’s jurisdictional findings.” See Hernandez v. Mimi’s 10 Rock Corp., 632 F. Supp. 3d 1052, 1062 (N.D. Cal. 2022). Where such showing is made, 11 discovery is proper. Where such showing is absent, the discovery request is tantamount to 12 a fishing expedition. See LNS Enters. LLC v. Cont’l Motors Inc., 464 F. Supp. 3d 1065, 13 1078 (D. Ariz. 2020) (denying a request to conduct limited jurisdictional discovery because 14 the plaintiffs failed to “provid[e] any affidavit or evidence substantiating their requests or 15 describe[e] with any precision how such discovery would be helpful to the Court.”). 16 Much of the parties’ dispute, and thus much of the Court’s analysis, centers upon 17 the question of whether personal jurisdiction exists under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 18 4(k)(2), which provides for personal jurisdiction in American fora even in the absence of 19 ordinary personal jurisdiction in any particular American forum. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(k)(2) 20 (“For a claim that arises under federal law, serving a summons or filing a waiver of service 21 establishes personal jurisdiction over a defendant if the defendant is not subject to 22 jurisdiction in any state’s courts of general jurisdiction and exercising jurisdiction is 23 consistent with the United States Constitution and laws.” (cleaned up)). Defendants1 cite 24 an unreported district-court case holding that a plaintiff may only resort to Rule 4(k)(2) 25 when a defendant’s contacts with the United States are “unusually extensive.” (Response 26 at 6 & n.3 (citing AMA Multimedia LLC v. Wanat, No. CV-15-01674-PHX-ROS, 2017 WL 27 1 Although the jurisdictional motion to dismiss was filed by Chemotechnique alone, 28 (see Doc. 12), Defendants have jointly responded to the instant Motion for limited jurisdictional discovery. 1 5668025, at *5 (D. Ariz. Sept. 29, 2017)).) Plaintiff argues that that proposition is no longer 2 true, as four years later the Ninth Circuit held that “Rule 4(k)(2) is not disfavored in this 3 Circuit. [Although] courts have rarely exercised jurisdiction under 4(k)(2), . . . this rarity 4 simply reflects that situations where a defendant has the requisite contacts with the United 5 States but not with any one state are unusual. The rarity of the rule’s applicability does not 6 indicate that Rule 4(k)(2) imposes a higher standard for due process.” See Ayla, LLC v. 7 Alya Skin Pty. Ltd., 11 F.4th 972, 978 n.1 (9th Cir. 2021). Defendants contend that AMA’s 8 “unusually extensive” criterion is somehow consistent with Ayla’s subsequent clarification 9 that Rule 4(k)(2) does not impose a higher due-process standard on the assessment of a 10 defendant’s contacts with the forum.

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Smarthealth Incorporated v. Chemotechnique MB Diagnostics AB, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/smarthealth-incorporated-v-chemotechnique-mb-diagnostics-ab-azd-2025.