Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-14-02527/USCOURTS-ca7-14-02527-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 

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In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 14-2527

WILLIAM R. KIPP,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

SKI ENTERPRISE CORPORATION OF 

WISCONSIN, INC.,

Defendant-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 14 C 60 — Joan Humphrey Lefkow, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED DECEMBER 2, 2014 — DECIDED APRIL 15, 2015

____________________

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and WILLIAMS and TINDER, Circuit Judges.

WOOD, Chief Judge. William Kipp broke his collarbone as 

he was attempting to board a chairlift operated by Ski Enterprise Corporation of Wisconsin, Inc., in Merrimac, Wisconsin. Kipp sued Ski Enterprise in federal court in Illinois, 

alleging that the company had negligently caused his injuries. Ski Enterprise countered with a motion seeking dismisCase: 14-2527 Document: 26 Filed: 04/15/2015 Pages: 8
2 No. 14-2527

sal based on lack of personal jurisdiction. The district court 

granted that motion and dismissed the case without prejudice. We affirm.

I

On January 6, 2012, Kipp purchased a chairlift ticket at 

Devil’s Head Ski Resort. As a result of the “unreasonably fast 

speed” of the lift in the boarding area, he was injured as he 

was attempting to board it. Kipp sued Ski Enterprise, the operator of the lift, in the Northern District of Illinois. He asserted that Ski Enterprise’s negligence in operating the lift at 

such a high speed caused him to be thrown from the lift and 

to suffer a displaced left clavicular fracture (i.e., a broken collarbone). The district court had subject-matter jurisdiction 

over the suit based on diversity of citizenship: Kipp is a citizen of Illinois, and Ski Enterprise is both incorporated and 

has its principal place of business in Wisconsin. See 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1332(a)(1), (c)(1).

Ski Enterprise filed a motion to dismiss based on the 

court’s lack of personal jurisdiction over it. After allowing 

Kipp to conduct limited discovery, the court granted the 

motion and dismissed the suit. In doing so, it relied on the 

following facts, which are not disputed by the parties. Ski 

Enterprise owns and operates the ski slopes at Devil’s Head 

Resort in Merrimac, Wisconsin. Its only offices are in 

Wisconsin. The company does not engage in print or 

broadcast advertising in Illinois, but it does attend a trade 

show—the “Windy City Ski and Snowboard Show”— that 

takes place in Chicago every year. At the show, Ski 

Enterprise representatives speak with potential customers 

and obtain their email addresses. The company later sends 

out “email E blasts” to those contacts touting its services and 

Case: 14-2527 Document: 26 Filed: 04/15/2015 Pages: 8
No. 14-2527 3

sales. There is also a website that includes information about 

both the Devil’s Head Resort (which is owned by the Devil’s 

Head Area Recreation Company, not a party here) and the 

ski slopes at the resort (which, as just noted, are operated by 

Ski Enterprise). Customers can reserve rooms at the resort 

through the website, which takes a deposit at that time, but 

they cannot purchase lift tickets on the site. The resort offers 

a vacation package called the “Chicagoland Express,” but 

the package is not limited to Chicago—or even Illinois—

residents. According to Joseph Vittengl, Ski Enterprise’s 

general manager, approximately 60 to 75 percent of the 

resort’s clients are from Illinois.

After the district court granted Ski Enterprise’s motion to 

dismiss, Kipp timely appealed. We review the district court’s

decision to dismiss de novo. Hyatt Int'l Corp. v. Coco, 302 F.3d 

707, 712 (7th Cir. 2002).

II

Once a defendant has moved for a dismissal based on the

lack of personal jurisdiction, “the plaintiff bears the burden 

of demonstrating the existence of jurisdiction.” Purdue Research Found. v. Sanofi-Synthelabo, S.A., 338 F.3d 773, 782 (7th 

Cir. 2003). When a court does not hold an evidentiary hearing but instead grants the defendant’s motion on the basis of 

written materials, as the district court did here, the plaintiff

must establish merely a prima facie case of personal jurisdiction. See id.

A federal district court sitting in diversity must apply the 

personal jurisdiction rules of the state in which it sits. See 

Hyatt, 302 F.3d at 713. Illinois is the relevant state in this case. 

The governing statute in Illinois permits its courts to exercise 

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personal jurisdiction up to the limits of the Due Process 

Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See 735 ILCS 5/2-

209(c) (“A court may also exercise jurisdiction on any other 

basis now or hereafter permitted by the Illinois Constitution 

and the Constitution of the United States.”); Hyatt, 302 F.3d 

at 715 (noting no operative difference between federal constitutional and Illinois constitutional personal jurisdiction 

limitations, though acknowledging that the “two standards 

hypothetically might diverge”); Rollins v. Ellwood, 565 N.E.2d 

1302, 1316 (Ill. 1990) (construing the due process guarantee 

in the Illinois Constitution to mean that “[j]urisdiction is to 

be asserted only when it is fair, just, and reasonable to require a nonresident defendant to defend an action in Illinois, 

considering the quality and nature of the defendant’s acts 

which occur in Illinois or which affect interests located in Illinois”). In keeping with these authorities, we conclude that 

it is enough for present purposes to analyze federal due process limitations on personal jurisdiction. The parties have 

not argued, nor does Illinois law indicate, that the state’s

constitutional standards would differ from federal law in 

this case.

The Due Process Clause authorizes personal jurisdiction 

over out-of-state defendants when the defendant has “certain minimum contacts with [the state] such that the maintenance of the suit does not offend ‘traditional notions of fair 

play and substantial justice.’” Int'l Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 

U.S. 310, 316 (1945) (quoting Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U.S. 457, 

463 (1940)). Courts recognize two types of personal jurisdiction: general and specific. Daimler AG v. Bauman, 134 S. Ct. 

746, 751 (2014). General jurisdiction is “all-purpose”; it exists 

only “when the [party’s] affiliations with the State in which 

suit is brought are so constant and pervasive as to render it 

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No. 14-2527 5

essentially at home in the forum State.” Id. (quoting Goodyear 

Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, 131 S. Ct. 2846, 2851 

(2011)) (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted).

Specific jurisdiction is case-specific; the claim must be linked 

to the activities or contacts with the forum. Id. Kipp disclaims any reliance on specific jurisdiction and relies solely 

on the general variety. 

In recent years, the Supreme Court has clarified and, it is 

fair to say, raised the bar for this type of jurisdiction. Because 

general jurisdiction exists even with respect to conduct entirely unrelated to the forum state, the Court has emphasized that it should not lightly be found. Instead, as the 

quote above shows, general jurisdiction exists only when the 

organization is “essentially at home” in the forum State.

Goodyear, 131 S. Ct. at 2851. Thus far, the Court has identified 

only two places where that condition will be met: the state of 

the corporation’s principal place of business and the state of 

its incorporation. Daimler, 134 S. Ct. at 760. Any additional 

candidates would have to meet the stringent criteria laid out 

in Goodyear and Daimler. Those criteria require more than the 

“substantial, continuous, and systematic course of business”

that was once thought to suffice. Id. at 760–61. The Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments permit courts, federal and state, to exercise general jurisdiction 

only when “the continuous corporate operations within a 

state [are] so substantial and of such a nature as to justify 

suit ... on causes of action arising from dealings entirely distinct 

from those activities.” Id. at 761 (quoting Int’l Shoe, 326 U.S. at 

318).

With this background in mind, we turn to the question 

whether Ski Enterprise’s contacts with Illinois are extensive 

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enough to say that Ski Enterprise is “at home” in the state. 

To begin with, it is undisputed that neither of Daimler’s “exemplar bases” applies; Ski Enterprise is a Wisconsin corporation, and it has its principal place of business in that state. 

Kipp accurately notes that it has a few contacts with Illinois, 

including its attendance at the annual trade show in Chicago, its use of that show to collect the email addresses of Illinois residents for marketing purposes, its targeting of Illinois customers through the Chicagoland Express package, 

its success in attracting a large number of such customers to 

the Devil’s Head Resort, and the ability of Illinois customers 

to visit the Devil’s Head Resort/Ski Enterprise website. These 

contacts come nowhere close to the Goodyear/Daimler standard. In fact, even before the Supreme Court’s recent pronouncements, Illinois courts and federal courts applying Illinois law have often found a lack of general jurisdiction in

similar situations.

In Roiser v. Cascade Mountain, Inc., 855 N.E.2d 243 (Ill. 

App. Ct. 2006), another personal injury suit against a ski resort, the defendants had an Illinois telephone number, engaged in some advertising in Illinois, attended trade shows 

in the state, and maintained a website that allowed customers to purchase season passes and rent equipment. The court 

found that these contacts were insufficient to support general jurisdiction. Id. at 249–50. A judge in the Northern District of Illinois reached the same result in Ruddy v. Wilmot 

Mountain, Inc., No. 10-C-07219, 2011 WL 3584418 (N.D. Ill.

Aug. 12, 2011), where the defendant ski resort maintained 

Illinois phone numbers; advertised on Chicago Transit Authority buses, an Illinois billboard, and the radio; and attended trade shows in Illinois. The defendant’s website allowed customers to purchase season passes and lift tickets 

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No. 14-2527 7

and contained maps to the resort from four Illinois cities. See 

id. at *3. The court held that there was no jurisdiction, noting 

that “mere solicitation of business” is inadequate. See id. at 

*3–4; see also Berks v. Rib Mountain Ski Corp., 571 F. Supp. 500 

(N.D. Ill. 1983); Radosta v. Devil's Head Ski Lodge, 526 N.E.2d 

561 (Ill. App. Ct. 1988).

Ski Enterprise’s contacts are similar—if not less significant—than those of the defendants in these cases. The company attends just one trade show per year, its website is 

mostly informative and does not allow customers to purchase lift tickets, and it does not maintain an Illinois office. 

Moreover, Ski Enterprise does not have many of the other 

characteristics that courts have used to support a finding of 

general jurisdiction: it has no employees in Illinois, it is not 

registered to do business in the state, and it does not advertise there. See Goodyear, 131 S. Ct. at 2852. Ski Enterprise does 

solicit business in Illinois, but no case has ever held that solicitation alone is sufficient for general jurisdiction. See id.

(noting lack of solicitation as one factor in the conclusion 

that there was no general jurisdiction, but listing several other factors as well); Ruddy, 2011 WL 3584418, at *3 (“Illinois 

courts consistently reject mere solicitation of business as a 

basis for the exercise of general personal jurisdiction.”). Ski 

Enterprise’s solicitation is relatively slight in any event: its 

Chicagoland Express package is not restricted to Illinois residents, and it talks to potential Illinois customers only once a 

year at a trade show. Finally, though the percentage of customers from Illinois is substantial, it is unclear whether that 

figure is caused by Ski Enterprise’s Illinois solicitation or is 

simply a result of the close proximity of Illinois to the resort 

and the high population density of Chicago. The assumption 

that all of the Illinois residents at Devil’s Head Resort are skiCase: 14-2527 Document: 26 Filed: 04/15/2015 Pages: 8
8 No. 14-2527

ing is also unfounded: the data represent overnight stays at 

the resort, not purchases of lift tickets. At best, it is an imperfect proxy for Ski Enterprise’s customers; at worst, it may 

systematically overstate the percentage of Illinois residents, 

who may be more likely to stay overnight than skiers who 

live in Wisconsin. But even if it were a good indicator of Ski 

Enterprise’s clientele, this figure, combined with the other 

contacts listed above, still does not suffice to make Ski Enterprise “at home” in Illinois. To the contrary, the company’s 

dealings with Illinois are best described as inconsistent and 

perhaps even sporadic.

Kipp also insists that the Devil’s Head Resort/Ski Enterprise website is a key factor in finding jurisdiction in this 

case. We have been clear that maintaining a public website is 

not sufficient, by itself, to establish general jurisdiction. See 

Tamburo v. Dworkin, 601 F.3d 693, 701 (7th Cir. 2010). There is 

nothing wrong with taking the website into account, even 

though it does not even allow customers to purchase lift 

tickets. But doing so does not help Kipp. The only conclusion that this record supports is that Ski Enterprise lacks 

continuous and systematic contacts with Illinois such that it 

is “at home” in that forum. Kipp thus has not made out a 

prima facie case of general personal jurisdiction.

III

Ski Enterprise’s contacts with Illinois are insubstantial

and episodic. While Goodyear and Daimler may have left 

some room for the exercise of general jurisdiction in the absence of incorporation or principal place of business in the 

forum state, this is not one of those rare situations. We thus 

AFFIRM the district court’s dismissal of the suit based on the 

lack of personal jurisdiction over Ski Enterprise. 

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