United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted November 16, 2011*

Decided November 23, 2011

Before

JOHN L. COFFEY, Circuit Judge

JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge

KENNETH F. RIPPLE, Circuit Judge

No. 11‐1950

CASSANDRA D. COLO’N, Appeal from the United States District

Plaintiff‐Appellant, Court for the Southern District of Indiana,

New Albany Division.

v. No. 4:08‐cv‐00026‐TWP‐DML

MARA B. AKIL, et al., Tanya Walton Pratt,

Defendants‐Appellees. Judge.

O R D E R

Cassandra Colo’n, an aspiring television writer living in Indiana, filed a

copyright action in the Southern District of Indiana alleging that a television episode

produced by the defendants infringed the copyright in her unpublished script in

violation of 17 U.S.C. § 501.  The district court dismissed her suit against five of the

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

*

After examining the briefs and record, we have concluded that oral argument is

unnecessary. Thus, the appeal is submitted on the briefs and record. See FED. R. APP. P.

34(a)(2)(C).
No. 11‐1950 Page 2

defendants for lack of personal jurisdiction and granted a default judgment against the

last.  We affirm.

Colo’n alleged in her complaint that defendant Allison Jordan, an agent, asked

her to write an episode of the television show The Game.  Colo’n wrote a script titled The

Game: Pass Interference, which Colo’n sent on to Jordan with the understanding that

Jordan would forward it to Mara Akil, a television producer.  Colo’n never heard back

from Jordan, but some time later she saw an episode of The Game that resembled her

script.  Colo’n then obtained a certificate of copyright registration for The Game: Pass

Interference and brought this suit against Jordan and Akil, along with other entities

involved in producing The Game—Akil Productions, Inc. (formerly named Happy

Camper Productions), Kelsey Grammar, Grammnet Productions, and CBS Studios, Inc.

CBS Studios first moved to dismiss the complaint, asserting that it was not

subject to general or specific personal jurisdiction in Indiana.  CBS Studios explained

that it is a production company primarily located in New York, incorporated in

Delaware, and a subsidiary of CBS Corporation.  It does not conduct business in

Indiana and does not broadcast television anywhere; it produced episodes of The Game

in California and licensed them to the CW television network for broadcast.  After CBS

Studios filed its motion, Colo’n sought discovery regarding CBS Studios’ presence in

Indiana.

Then‐District Judge Hamilton dismissed CBS Studios from the case, determining

that the company had no meaningful contacts with Indiana and no contact with Indiana

related to The Game.  In analyzing whether CBS Studios was subject to general

jurisdiction, the judge explained that Colo’n did not allege that CBS Studios had any

business contacts with Indiana, let alone continuous and systematic contacts with

Indiana.  The court also declined to impute to CBS Studios the contacts of its parent

company, CBS Corporation (which does have more extensive, nationwide contacts as

alleged by Colo’n); the two companies are separate because they observe corporate

formalities, and CBS Corporation does not exercise day‐to‐day management over CBS

Studios.  The judge determined that the court had no specific jurisdiction over CBS

Studios; CBS Studios had not availed itself of the privileges of conducting business in

Indiana because no production of The Game took place there.  The judge also denied

Colo’n’s request for discovery because she had not established a prima facie case that

CBS Studios was subject to personal jurisdiction.
No. 11‐1950 Page 3

After the remaining defendants (except Jordan) moved to dismiss the complaint

on grounds that they too were not subject to jurisdiction in Indiana, Judge Hamilton

dismissed them from the case.  He did not find general jurisdiction based on these

defendants’ association with CBS Studios, noting that CBS Studios was previously

dismissed from the case because its contacts were insufficient to subject it to personal

jurisdiction in Indiana.  The judge also found that Colo’n could not satisfy the

“purposeful availment” requirement of specific jurisdiction; he noted that none of the

defendants had heard of Colo’n before her lawsuit and thus the court could not base

jurisdiction on unsupported allegations of their intentional copyright infringement.

Colo’n then sought a default judgment against Jordan, the lone defendant who

never responded to her complaint.  District Judge Pratt (to whom the case had been

reassigned) held a hearing to assess the question of damages.  Judge Pratt ultimately

determined that Colo’n adequately stated a claim of copyright infringement against

Jordan, but could not recover damages because (1) Colo’n had waived her request for

actual damages (and even if she had not, she had never been paid for any of her scripts

and had no contract of any kind with Jordan), and (2) the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C.

§ 412, barred statutory damages because Colo’n waited for more than three months

after the airing of the episode before copyrighting her script.

Colo’n then sought reconsideration so that she could conduct discovery on

damages, but Judge Pratt denied the request because Colo’n had ample time before the

hearing to seek discovery (the case had been pending more than four years).

On appeal, Colo’n first argues that her allegations and supporting evidence are

enough to show that the defendants all had sufficient minimum contacts with Indiana.

Colo’n maintains that the district court should have found jurisdiction based on the

defendants’ substantial contacts with Indiana through their affiliates—an apparent

reference to CBS Corporation, not CBS Studios.

We agree with Judge Hamilton’s conclusion that Colo’n did not establish

jurisdiction over the defendants in Indiana.  Personal jurisdiction under Indiana law

and the Due Process Clause may be either general or specific.  Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(k)(1)(A);

see also Indiana Rule of Trial Procedure 4.4(A); Manez v. Bridgestone Firestone N. Am. Tire,

LLC, 533 F.3d 578, 587 (7th Cir. 2008).  Judge Hamilton properly determined that Colo’n

showed no evidence of general jurisdiction because she did not show that the

defendants maintained continuous and systematic business contacts with Indiana.

See Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, 131 S. Ct. 2846, 2851 (2011)
No. 11‐1950 Page 4

(reaffirming that for foreign corporations to be subject to general jurisdiction, their

contacts with the forum state must be “so continuous and systematic as to render them

essentially at home in the forum State”); Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia, S.A. v. Hall,

466 U.S. 408, 415–16 (1984); uBID, Inc. v. GoDaddy Group, Inc., 623 F.3d 421, 425–26 (7th

Cir. 2010).  Nor did she show specific jurisdiction, as Judge Hamilton explained, by

proving that the defendants availed themselves of the privileges of conducting business

in Indiana.  See J. McIntyre Mach., Ltd. v. Nicastro, 131 S. Ct. 2780, 2789 (2011) (explaining

that purposeful availment hinges on “whether a defendant has followed a course of

conduct directed at the society or economy existing within the jurisdiction of a given

sovereign”); Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 475–76 (1985); Tamburo v.

Dworkin, 601 F.3d 693, 702 (7th Cir. 2010).  Colo’n continues to argue that the presence

of CBS Corporation in Indiana conferred jurisdiction over CBS Studios, but her

argument fails because personal jurisdiction cannot be premised on corporate affiliation

alone when, as Judge Hamilton found, CBS Studios and CBS Corporation exist as

separate entities.  See Purdue Research Found. v. Sanofi‐Synthelabo, S.A., 338 F.3d 773, 788

n.17 (7th Cir. 2003); Cent. States, Se. & Sw. Areas Pension Fund v. Reimer Express World

Corp., 230 F.3d 934, 943–45 (7th Cir. 2000).

Colo’n also asserts that the district court should have found that all of the

defendants were subject to jurisdiction in Indiana because they aired her episode of The

Game in Indiana.  She relies on the “express aiming” theory, which bases jurisdiction on

a defendant’s conduct intentionally aimed at the forum state. See Calder v. Jones, 465 U.S.

783, 788–91 (1984); Mobile Anesthesiologists Chi., LLC v. Anesthesia Assocs. of Houston

Metroplex, P.A., 623 F.3d 440, 445 n.1 (7th Cir. 2010).  But Colo’n failed to show that the

defendants intentionally aimed their conduct at Indiana because she submitted no

evidence that any of the defendants had anything to do with the Indiana broadcast of

The Game.  And as the district court found, Colo’n also did not show that the defendants

acted “with the knowledge that they would cause harm to the plaintiff there,” Mobile,

623 F.3d at 445, since the evidence was undisputed that none of the defendants knew of

her or her script before Colo’n filed her suit.

Colo’n next argues that Judge Hamilton erroneously prohibited her from

conducting discovery about personal jurisdiction before granting the motions to

dismiss.  But Judge Hamilton correctly determined that Colo’n needed to establish at

least a colorable showing of personal jurisdiction before being allowed discovery,

see Cent. States, Se. & Sw. Areas Pension Fund v. Phencorp Reinsurance Co., 440 F.3d 870,

876–77 (7th Cir. 2006), and as we have explained, she had not.  Moreover, Colo’n sought

extensive information about the defendants’ business plans, employment practices, and
No. 11‐1950 Page 5

marketing campaigns—a request that would have been unduly burdensome before

Colo’n had established the existence of personal jurisdiction over them. See GCIU‐Emp’r

Ret. Fund, 565 F.3d at 1026; Reimer Express, 230 F.3d at 947.

Colo’n lastly argues that Judge Pratt should have granted her motion for

reconsideration and permitted her to conduct discovery into actual damages against

Jordan.  But Colo’n raised this issue for the first time in a motion for reconsideration, so

the judge did not abuse her discretion in denying it.

AFFIRMED