good morning your honors christopher desmond on behalf of annette dealer and so your honor as i stated before oral argument i'd like to reserve one minute for a bottle which i know is not very much but in the context of a five minute argument it's pretty beefy this started  there's one other defendant who is not represented here out here that's ricketts and associates who was the owner of the anna hotel which was the hotel that my client was a guest of at the time of this assault  so your honour's i'd like to start today we made an argument in our brief regarding two different justifications for the district court asserting jurisdiction in this case but sections three zero one and three o two new york law and so i want to start with three zero one three one is  the concept of general jurisdiction which i think is the stronger argument to be frank relative to the defendant that does have representation today and so under section three zero one there is jurisdiction over a defendant if they have sust systematic and continuous contacts with this jurisdiction and in determining whether or not such context exists the courts look to a number of factors including i think relevant to this case whether or not that defend conducts p r operations public relations operations within the jurisdiction and whether or not they have any employees or agents that are located within this jurisdiction to continuously represent their interests and so  well we believe they do your honor first of all we know from their discovery responses the limited discovery responses we were able to receive we know that they've hired a firm inside of new york to help them with their website they they initially set up their booking mechanism in their website and they maintain that website to this day i believe that the website is what is what interfaces with custom that's right it's a highly interactive website in which individuals inside of new york can fully book rooms without having to interact with any interviewer here you are the public relations firm if it is from the developers websites i believe that's a fair reading of the law your honor yeah i believe that that's correct your honor that's correct we don't know what percentage of the bookings done through this website for this particular defendant were new yorkers but i can tell you that for the other defendant involved in this case it's a full thirteen percent of that hotel's business which is a substantial amount considering that the average state in the united states is about one point eight percent of the other defendants hotel business i don't know whether or not it would track with the other defendant whether they would have a similar proportion but part of that is because of the lack of discovery that we were entitled to do which i really think your honor is the crux of our argument is that there should have been a fuller opportunity to be able to depose individuals once we started to get into discovery and we were limited to written discovery once it was revealed that this defendant does employ a firm inside of new york this defendant does have an officer who resides in the greater new york city area and works in the greater new york city area once we had some indication that there were more contacts here then someone may have anticipated at the outset of the case the proper thing for the district court judge to do would have been to allow us to have additional discovery just related to the issue of jurisdiction we were trying to have liability related discovery yet but just to be able to talk to individuals to take depositions for additional we did during the course of our discover our motion to dismiss response your honor and what the district court judge said was that he didn't consider that to be a sufficient request but then he said that even if we had requested it through alternative motions he would have denied it because he didn't think that we had made a sufficient going to justify that additional di you correctly say that you think this falls under three  or your home basis and that's that's not this corporation at all well so a corporation that does business in the caribbean the whole website is not a they're not incorporated here and be either home offices and here so i don't understand how you're under through one of all if anything you're under three and two and then you've got to have you here transacting business and and the claim arising out of the transaction correct your honor and that's i mean this would stretch that this would stretch cut general jurisdiction beyond its constitutional norm i don't believe it would your honor and i understand that fight so i have a website i'm up i'm a delaware corporation with my home office in delaware wilmington delaware and i have a website that five or ten percent or thirteen percent of my business comes from new york i'm generally present in new york for general jurisdictional purposes if it was limited to that those facts your honor i don't think i could necessarily say you weren't but i don't think we're limited to those facts respectfully what other faculty we have the additional fact of an officer from the company being located in the new york area now what he does on behalf of the company while he's in the office california and they weren't there for general purpose general jurisdictional purposes take their facts and there are far more substantial presence in california they weren't there to be fair your honor what i would respond to with you here with with that well i'm not saying you're not be just you know i'm not i'm not at all suggesting that you're not being fair but what i am saying your honor is that i just give you a hard time which jurisdiction the benefit that they had in that case was being able to find out what it did general and i mean that's know they won't even issue an opinion will be reversed see know things no i don't you're ok i don't and again it's relative to this defendant now on the other defendant on the ricketts and associates defendant i think we have jurisdiction under both general and under three o two under the specific jurisdictions through the long arm statute i don't think there's any country so it was it was a combination for the other defendant it was a combination of their targeting advertisements to the new york area along with the booking of the hotel room in new york through that company's website so our in new york specifically advertising to new yorkers attending travel shows in new york participating in promotional activities in new york i think that potentially changes the calculus ok ok and what i would say again respectfully  honors is that to me the primary concern is just ensuring that we have proper discovery with the limited facts that we have uncovered so far you reserve the minutes were but i have think you know the may it please the court my name is nicholas has learned i represent the viceroy apple lease your honour's i think i want to clear up what start to start with his last point first about the discovery the lower court made it very clear that there was a  period for you know they could have objected to the discovery that was provided they could have made an application for more discovery it was some discovery provide there was discovery that on the limited issue of jurisdiction that was exchanged there was no objection in an application for further discovery and they therefore waive the rights any further discovery and i think it's on but it was the issue was raised in response to the motion sickness the issue was raised in the response yes they said we want jurisdictional discovery that was granted and then they were satisfied as i understand with what sequence with what they were given and the lower court made clear they should have asked for more which they didn't do with respect i want to clear up an issue with mr stan holtz he's not a  officer of the viceroy defendants he's according to and it admissible printout of a linked in profile which is a website he is an officer of starwood capital group which is an entity related to one of the void viceroy defendants but he's not an officer of them he according to this inadmissible printout he's an employee who lives in the greater new york area it actually turns out in the record that he's from he has offices in connecticut he's not in new york and look at the big picture here you have no connection with my clients to new york in any way there they're based in california and you know the b w i and they have the license to do business in florida and in delaware but you know the mere their only connection to this case is they happen to be the hotel next door they happen to employ the alleged assailant but for purposes of jurisdiction whether we're talking about general or specific there's just no connection here the only possible connection is the website which this court has made clear and we have plenty of precedent set it in our preferred to the effect that maintaining a website is not enough to confer general jurisdiction nor any of the key factors for doing business met the existence of an office in new york solicitation bank accounts property etc none of those key factors are present here there is no solicitation clear that it's just having a website that's except it's not purposely directed to new york it's accessible from anywhere in the world there is no part plaintiff has never alleged or proven that any part of the website is directed towards new york which would be required under the solicitation plus theory i think the record speaks for itself i mean we have an alternative ground of life vicarious liability that this was an intentional toward by the employer employee alleged employee which could not be imputed the lower the lower court did not reach that issue i don't think we need to we need even need that or that this court even needs to reach it unless the court has any questions i'll rest on my  listening just to explain my understanding of what happened with the discovery process in this case i believe pursuant to judge broader its protocols and court rules local rules the defendant sought leave with judge broaddrick in conjunction with their first response of pleading to file a motion to dismiss judge broaddrick then held a judicial conference which we attended at that conference judge broderick it's instructed that there was to be limited a written discovery through the you know the process of iraq the tories and request to produce he then stated that following that limited discovery the defendants could bring their motions to dismiss we engaged in that limited written discovery had no access to depositions then when they filed their motions to dismiss pursuant to judge broderick's instructions we responded that this is what we we received in response to our interactive tori's we essentially received a series of objections and no responses and we believe that under the judge submission that's the last case on calendar please adjourn court