IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 15-30690

DANNY PATTERSON, 

 Plaintiff - Appellant

v.

AKER SOLUTIONS INCORPORATED; FMC TECHNOLOGIES, 

INCORPORATED; FMC EURASIA, L.L.C.; AKER SUBSEA AS, 

 Defendants - Appellees

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Louisiana

USDC No. 2:13-CV-337

Before HIGGINBOTHAM, DENNIS, and CLEMENT, Circuit Judges.

EDITH BROWN CLEMENT, Circuit Judge:

In this personal injury suit arising out of events occurring in waters off

the coast of Russia, Danny Patterson appeals the district court’s dismissal of 

defendant Aker Subsea AS (“Aker Subsea”), for lack of personal jurisdiction. 

For the following reasons, we AFFIRM. 

I.

Patterson, a U.S. citizen, allegedly sustained a knee injury while 

working aboard the M/V SIMON STEVIN, a Luxembourg-flagged vessel that 

was located off the coast of Russia. Patterson was working for Blue Offshore 

Projects BV (“Blue Offshore”) on a project to install subsea production 

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

June 13, 2016

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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equipment in a gas and condensate field. While aboard the M/V SIMON 

STEVIN, Patterson claims that he was struck by a cable and was injured. 

Patterson sued Blue Offshore and two other companies involved in the 

project, Aker Solutions, Inc. (“Aker Solutions”) and FMC Technologies, Inc., in 

the Eastern District of Louisiana. Patterson alleged that the defendants’ 

negligence caused his injuries. Patterson amended his complaint and added 

more defendants including Aker Subsea, FMC Kongsberg Subsea AS (“FMC 

Kongsberg”), and FMC Eurasia, LLC. Aker Subsea and FMC Kongsberg 

separately moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. The district court 

allowed Patterson additional time to conduct jurisdictional discovery. After 

completion of the jurisdictional discovery, the district court found that neither 

specific nor general personal jurisdiction existed over Aker Subsea or FMC 

Kongsberg. Thus, it granted their motions and dismissed them from the suit. 

Patterson sought to certify the district court’s dismissal order as a final 

judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b). Simultaneously, he

appealed the dismissal to this court, arguing that the district court has general 

personal jurisdiction over both Aker Subsea and FMC Kongsberg. We stayed 

the appeal pending the district court’s determination of the 54(b) motion. The

same day, we granted Patterson’s unopposed motion to dismiss FMC 

Kongsberg. After the district court certified its order as final, we lifted the stay.

We now consider whether the district court erred in dismissing Aker Subsea 

under Rule 12(b)(2).1

 

1 Because the district court certified its dismissal order as a final judgment, this court 

has jurisdiction over the appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. See Crowley Mar. Corp. v. Panama 

Canal Comm’n, 849 F.2d 951, 953-54 (5th Cir. 1988) (holding that where a premature notice 

of appeal is filed, a subsequent Rule 54(b) certification is sufficient to validate the notice of 

appeal). 

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II. 

We review de novo the district court’s Rule 12(b)(2) dismissal for lack of 

personal jurisdiction. Revell v. Lidov, 317 F.3d 467, 469 (5th Cir. 2002). “The 

plaintiff bears the burden of establishing jurisdiction, but need only present 

prima facie evidence.” Id. We “must accept the plaintiff’s uncontroverted 

allegations, and resolve in [his] favor all conflicts between the facts contained 

in the parties’ affidavits and other documentation.” Id. (alteration in original) 

(internal quotation marks omitted). 

III.

Patterson argues that the district court erred by dismissing Aker Subsea 

because, in his view, it has sufficient contacts with the United States to 

establish general personal jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure

4(k)(2).2 Patterson contends that over a three-year period, Aker Subsea entered 

into eleven secondment agreements3 whereby it would assign its employees to 

an American affiliate in Houston, Texas. Under the secondment agreements, 

the employees sent to the United States remained employees of Aker Subsea. 

To Patterson, this shows continuous and systematic contacts in the United 

States sufficient to assert general jurisdiction over Aker Subsea.

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(k)(2)4 “provides for service of process 

and personal jurisdiction in any district court for cases arising under federal 

 

2 Patterson does not argue on appeal that specific personal jurisdiction exists over 

Aker Subsea. 

3 The term secondment means “the detachment of a person . . . from his regular 

organization for temporary assignment elsewhere.” Webster’s Third New Int’l Dictionary

(10th ed. 2014). Here, the secondment agreements sent workers from Aker Subsea in Norway 

to Aker Solutions, an affiliate, in Houston. Aker Subsea would maintain all of the benefits of 

the seconded employee in Norway, including Norwegian Social Security, home country 

pension, and insurance. Aker Solutions was responsible for the day-to-day instruction of the 

seconded employee. 

4 Rule 4(k)(2) states that “[f]or a claim that arises under federal law, serving a 

summons or filing a waiver of service establishes personal jurisdiction over a defendant if:

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law where the defendant has contacts with the United States as a whole 

sufficient to satisfy due process concerns and the defendant is not subject to 

jurisdiction in any particular state.” Adams v. Unione Mediterranea Di Sicurta, 

364 F.3d 646, 650 (5th Cir. 2004). Here, the dispute is whether Aker Subsea 

has sufficient contacts with the United States to satisfy due process.

“The due process required in federal cases governed by Rule 4(k)(2) is 

measured with reference to the Fifth Amendment, rather than the Fourteenth 

Amendment. That is, Rule 4(k)(2) requires us to consider [Aker Subsea’s] 

contacts with the United States as a whole . . . .” Submersible Sys., Inc. v. 

Perforadora Cent., S.A. de C.V., 249 F.3d 413, 420 (5th Cir. 2001). Thus, to 

assert general personal jurisdiction under Rule 4(k)(2), Aker Subsea’s contacts 

with the United States must be so continuous and systematic as to render it

essentially at home in the United States. See id.; Daimler AG v. Bauman, 134 

S. Ct. 746, 761 (2014) (“[T]he inquiry under [Goodyear Dunlop Tires 

Operations, S.A. v. Brown, 564 U.S. 915, 919 (2011)] is not whether a foreign 

corporation’s in-forum contacts can be said to be in some sense ‘continuous and 

systematic,’ it is whether that corporation’s ‘affiliations with the State are so 

‘continuous and systematic’ as to render [it] essentially at home in the forum 

State.’”).

The proper forum for exercising general jurisdiction over a corporation 

is one in which a corporation is fairly regarded at home. Goodyear, 564 U.S. at 

924 (citing Brilmayer et al., A General Look at General Jurisdiction, 66 Tex. L. 

Rev. 721, 782 (1988) (identifying place of incorporation and principal place of 

business as paradigm bases for the exercise of general jurisdiction)). Both Aker 

Subsea’s place of incorporation and principal place of business are in Norway.

 

(A) the defendant is not subject to jurisdiction in any state’s courts of general 

jurisdiction; and (B) exercising jurisdiction is consistent with the United States Constitution 

and laws.”

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Thus, to exercise general jurisdiction here, these facts must yield what the 

Supreme Court has described as the “exceptional case.”5

The record contains no evidence that Aker Subsea had any business 

contacts with the United States except for eleven secondment agreements.

Sending eleven employees to the United States over a brief period does not rise 

to the level of making Aker Subsea at home in the United States. The Supreme 

Court has found a sufficient basis for the exercise of general jurisdiction over 

a non-resident defendant in only one modern case—Perkins v. Benguet Consol. 

Mining Co., 342 U.S. 437 (1952)—and Aker Subsea’s contacts with the United 

States do not come close to the level of contacts there. 

In Perkins, the Court found that the defendant, a Philippine corporation, 

could be subject to general personal jurisdiction in Ohio based on its extensive 

contacts within the state. 342 U.S. at 448-49. Due to World War II, the 

corporation moved certain operations from the Philippines to Ohio. The 

corporation’s contacts with Ohio included: maintaining an office, keeping 

company files there, corresponding from Ohio about business and employees, 

paying salaries to the company’s president and two secretaries, maintaining 

company bank accounts, using an Ohio bank as a transfer agent for stock of 

the company, holding several directors’ meetings, managing company policies 

concerning rehabilitation of company property in the Philippines, and sending 

funds to pay for projects in the Philippines. Id. at 447-48. Here, there is no 

evidence of contacts with the United States similar to the contacts in Perkins.

 

5 See Daimler, 134 S. Ct. at 761 n.19 (“We do not foreclose the possibility that in an 

exceptional case, see, e.g., [Perkins v. Benguet Consol. Mining Co., 342 U.S. 437 (1952)] . . . a 

corporation’s operations in a forum other than its formal place of incorporation or principal 

place of business may be so substantial and of such a nature as to render the corporation at 

home in that State.”); see also Monkton Ins. Servs., Ltd. v. Ritter, 768 F.3d 429, 432 (5th Cir. 

2014) (noting that “[i]t is . . . incredibly difficult to establish general jurisdiction in a forum 

other than the place of incorporation or principal place of business.”). 

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There is no evidence that Aker Subsea maintained an office, bank accounts, or 

conducted any corporate business in the United States. Using Perkins as the 

benchmark of the “exceptional case” where it is appropriate to exercise general 

jurisdiction over a corporation outside of its principal place of business or place 

of incorporation, we hold that Aker Subsea’s contacts fall well short of 

effectively operating its business within the United States. At most, Aker 

Subsea sent eleven of its employees to the United States when it entered into 

the secondment agreements with its affiliate.6 These contacts are insufficient 

to make Aker Subsea essentially at home in the United States. 

This court has declined to exercise general personal jurisdiction over a 

corporation where its most significant and continuous contact with the forum 

was having employees located there. See Bowles v. Ranger Land Sys., Inc., 527 

F. App’x 319, 321-22 (5th Cir. 2013). In Bowles, a Texas resident sued an 

Alabama corporation in Texas for an injury sustained from a car wreck with 

the corporation’s employee in Kuwait. Id. at 320. The corporation moved to 

dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. Id. The district court examined the 

corporation’s contacts with Texas and reasoned that those contacts were 

insufficient to subject the corporation to general personal jurisdiction in Texas. 

Id. Thus, it granted the motion. On appeal, this court agreed, finding that the 

corporation’s contacts with Texas were insufficient to exercise general 

jurisdiction over it. Id. The contacts included the following: six employees of 

the corporation worked at two military bases in Texas; the corporation’s 

employees sometimes worked at or participated in training programs at a 

British military contractor’s facility located in Texas; a small number of 

employees of the corporation underwent processing at a U.S. military facility 

 

6 We assume, without deciding, that for purposes of this personal jurisdiction analysis 

sending an employee to the United States under a secondment agreement is the equivalent 

of sending an employee to work in the United States. 

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in Texas before traveling to overseas assignments; the corporation paid 

unemployment and franchise taxes in Texas; and the corporation’s website 

could be accessed in Texas and contained email addresses for several 

employees of the corporation. Id. at 321. The court noted that the presence of 

employees was the corporation’s most significant and sustained contact with 

Texas. Id. at 322. But this was not enough to establish general jurisdiction: 

“That a small number of [the corporation’s] employees happen to live and work 

in Texas on projects related to [the corporation’s] dealings with the military or 

with other defense contractors does not indicate a sustained business presence 

in the state.” Id. This reasoning applies to the facts here. That a small number 

of employees of Aker Subsea were seconded to the United States to work for an 

affiliate does not establish that Aker Subsea has a sustained business presence 

here.

Additionally, the rare cases where this court has found general 

jurisdiction over a foreign defendant are distinguishable. In System Pipe & 

Supply, Inc. v. M/V Viktor Kurnatovskiy, 242 F.3d 322, 325 (5th Cir. 2001), 

the panel concluded that the plaintiff’s factual basis for claiming general 

jurisdiction over the foreign defendant corporation, if established, would be 

sufficient to show national minimum contacts. Those contacts included the 

following: (1) the defendant’s fleet of vessels regularly called at most major 

ports in over fifty countries, including the United States; (2) in 1993, the 

defendant established and began to advertise Azsco America Line to provide 

service for U.S. Gulf Ports to the Mediterranean and Black Seas; (3) the 

defendant maintained another line of vessels to carry cargo from the east coast 

to Israel; (4) at least one of the defendant’s vessels had previously been 

detained in Texas; (5) the defendant’s ship, the M/V VIKTOR 

KURNATOVSKIY, called and discharged the plaintiff’s cargo at the Port of 

Houston; (6) since 1993, the defendant had been a named party in 

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approximately fifty actions in United States District Courts; and (7) the 

defendant had been a defendant in another suit maintained in the Southern 

District of Texas which was not dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction. Id.

Significant here, Aker Subsea has not had the degree of continuous and 

systematic contacts with the United States that the foreign defendant 

corporation had with the United States in System Pipe. There is no evidence in 

the record that Aker Subsea has regularly conducted business in the United 

States, advertised here, maintained assets here, or has been a party to 

litigation in United States courts. 

In Adams, this court found that the defendant, a foreign insurer, had 

sufficient contacts with the United States to assert general jurisdiction over it 

under Rule 4(k)(2). 364 F.3d at 652. The defendant’s contacts included the 

following: it had paid claims to numerous U.S. companies (155 in all from 1991 

to 1994); it had covered numerous other U.S. companies which made no claims; 

and it had insured hundreds of shipments to the United States. Records 

showed that the defendant insured approximately 260 shipments to the United 

States between 1989 and 1995 for one company alone; 138 of these shipments

were valued at over $130 million. Id. at 651. Even more, the defendant used 

and paid a number of individuals in the United States as claims adjusters, 

surveyors, investigators, and other representatives to enable it to conduct 

business in America. Id. Here, there is no evidence that Aker Subsea conducted 

any business in the United States, let alone the significant level of business 

conducted by the defendant in Adams.7

 

7 Both System Pipe and Adams predate Goodyear and Daimler AG. Scholars have 

viewed the Court’s recent personal jurisdiction decisions as part of an access-restrictive 

trend. See, e.g., Arthur R. Miller, Simplified Pleading, Meaningful Days in Court, and Trials 

on the Merits: Reflections on the Deformation of Federal Procedure, 88 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 286, 

304 (2013). 

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Exercising personal jurisdiction over Aker Subsea under Rule 4(k)(2) is 

appropriate only if its contacts with the United States as a whole are sufficient 

to satisfy due process concerns. Aker Subsea’s limited contacts with the United 

States—eleven secondment agreements—are insufficient to satisfy due process 

concerns. Thus, exercising general personal jurisdiction over Aker Subsea 

would be inappropriate. AFFIRMED.

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