1 18-2906 Johnson v. UBS AG UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
SUMMARY ORDER Rulings by summary order do not have preceden tial effect. Citation to a summary order filed on or after January 1, 2007, is permitted a nd is governed by Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32.1 and this court’s Local Rule 32.1.1. When citing a summary order in a document filed with this court, a party must cite either the Federal Appendix or an electronic database (with the notation “summa ry order”). A party citing a summary order must serve a copy of it on any party not represented by counsel

. At a stated term of the Unite d States Court of Appeals for th e Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Fole y Square, in the City of New York, on the 7 th day of November, two thousand nineteen.
PRESENT: ROBERT A. KATZMANN, Chief Judge , DENNY CHIN, CHRISTOPHER F. DRONEY, Circuit Judges

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KATHLEEN JOHNSON and JUDITH WOODARD, individually and as Trustees of th e Annabell M. Palmer Family Trust, Plaintiffs-Appellants , v. No. 18-2906 UBS AG, Defendant-Appellee , Union Bank of Switzerland, Defendant.2 For Plaintiffs-Appellants Kathleen Johnson and Judith Woodard: J ACK S. D WECK , The Dweck Law Firm, LLP, New York, NY. For Defendant-Appellee UBS AG: D AVID L. G OLDBERG , Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, New York, NY.
Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court fo r the Southern District of New York (Hellerstein, J. ). UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED

. Plaintiffs-appellants Kathleen Johnson and J udith Woodard, individually and as trustees of the Annabell M. Palmer Family Trust (“th e Trustees”), brought su it against defendantappellee UBS AG (“UBS”) for conduct arising fr om decedent Ann Palmer’s 1998 transfer of $4
million from an account in the Un ited States to UBS in Switzerla nd. The Trustees appeal from a judgment of the United States Dist rict Court for the Southern Dist rict of New York (Hellerstein,
J. ) dismissing their amended complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction ov er UBS and for failing to meet the statutes of limitations for their various claims under New York law. We assume the parties’ familiar ity with the underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal. “We review de novo a district court’s decisi on to grant motions under Rule 12(b)(2) and 12(b)(6).” Charles Schwab Corp. v. Bank of Am. Corp. , 883 F.3d 68, 81 (2d Cir. 2018). 1 “[I]n deciding a pretrial motion to di smiss for lack of personal juri sdiction a district court has considerable procedural leeway. It may determine the motion on the basis of affidavi ts alone; or it may permit discovery in aid of the motion; or it may conduct an evid entiary hearing on the

1 Unless otherwise indicated, in quoting cases, all internal quotation marks, alterations, emphases, footnotes, and citations are omitted.3 merits of the motion.” Dorchester Fin. Sec., Inc. v. Banco BRJ, S.A. , 722 F.3d 81, 84 (2d Cir. 2013) (per curiam). Courts may consider materials outside the pleadings on a mo tion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdic tion without converti ng it into a summary judgment motion. Id. at 86. “Where . . . the district court relies on the pleadings and affida vits, and does not conduct a fullblown evidentiary hearing, we review the di strict court’s resulting legal conclusions de novo ,” construing the pleadings and affidavi ts in favor of the plaintiffs. Id. at 85. Three requirements must be met to exerci se personal jurisdicti on over a defendant: service of process must have been procedurally proper, “there must be a statutory basis for personal jurisdiction,” and “the exercise of personal juri sdiction must comport with constitutional due pr ocess principles.” Waldman v. Palestine Liberation Org. , 835 F.3d 317, 327 (2d Cir. 2016). We agree with the di strict court that the Trustees have not plausibl y alleged facts to meet the due process requirements for jurisdic tion and that they theref ore have not made “a prima facie showing that jurisdiction exists.” Charles Schwab , 883 F.3d at 81. To establish that the exercise of personal jurisdiction comports with the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendmen ts, courts must determine both “whether a defendant has sufficient minimum contacts with the forum to justify the court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over the defe ndant” and “whether the assert ion of personal jurisdiction over the defendant comports with trad itional notions of fair play and substantial justice under the circumstances of the particular case.” Waldman , 835 F.3d at 331. In analyzing the minimum contacts requirement, courts ha ve distinguished between two ba ses for personal jurisdiction: specific jurisdiction and general jurisdiction. Id. Neither version is present in this case. First, the Trustees do not allege facts to pl ead specific jurisdiction. To establish specific jurisdiction, a “def endant’s suit-related c onduct must create a substa ntial connection with the4 forum State.” Walden v. Fiore , 571 U.S. 277, 284 (2014). The Trustees attempt to meet the minimum contacts standard through a simple equation: a cas e arising out of UBS’s “contacts within the U.S.,” plus UBS’s continuing presence in New York through its branch offices, equals specific jurisdiction. Appellants’ Br. 13. But th ese components do not add up. The Trustees’ method of establishing jurisdicti on is similar to a “sliding scale a pproach,” in which “the strength of the requisite connection between the forum and the specific clai ms at issue is relaxed if the defendant has extensive forum contacts that are unrelated to those claims”—an approach the Supreme Court has rejected as “a loose a nd spurious form of general jurisdiction.” Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of Cal. , 137 S. Ct. 1773, 1781 (2017). “For specific jurisdiction, a defendant’s general connections with the forum are not enough.” Id. 2 And neither the complaint nor any of the other documents in the record suggest that UB S’s connections with New York relate to the circumstances of this case. The complaint fails to allege which state Palmer was in when she wired the $4 million, and it also fails to indicate where she was convinced to transfer the funds. It states only that she transferred th e funds from “her account at Citibank in the United States.” Compl. ¶ 8. The documents the Trustees entered into the record below indicate that her account was based in California, not New York. UBS’s New York presence cannot make up for the utter lack of any alleged c onnection between that presence and the events in this case. The Trustees also assert that specific jurisd iction exists because “UBS has availed itself of the Courts in New York” in other cases. Appellants’ Br. 14; see Reply Br. 3-4. This argument, too, fails. “Courts typically requ ire that the plaintif f show some sort of causal relationship between a defendant’s U.S. contacts and the episode in suit , and the plaintiff’s claim must in

2 For similar reasons, the district court is also correct that Johnson’s New York citizenship is irrelevant to the personal jurisdiction analysis. See Walden , 571 U.S. at 284 (“We have consistently rejected attempts to satisfy the defendant-focused ‘minimum contacts’ inquiry by demonstrating contacts between the plaintiff (or third part ies) and the forum State.”).5 some way arise from the defendants’ purposeful contacts with the forum.” Charles Schwab , 883 F.3d at 84 (emphases added). UBS’s involvement in other cases in New York does not create specific jurisdiction because “a de fendant’s relationship with a third party, st anding alone, is an insufficient basis for jurisd iction,” and those other cases create no “connection between the forum and the specific claims at issue” here. Bristol-Myers Squibb , 137 S. Ct. at 1781. For a court to have specific personal jurisdiction, ther e must be an “adequate link between the State and the nonresidents’ claims.” Id. The Trustees have identified no such link. Nor do the Trustees make a prima facie show ing of general jurisdiction. Courts “may assert general jurisdiction over fo reign (sister-state or foreign-c ountry) corporations to hear any and all claims against them when their affi liations with the State are so continuous and systematic as to render them essen tially at home in the forum State.” Daimler AG v. Bauman , 571 U.S. 117, 127 (2014). “Aside from the truly exceptional case, a corporation is at home and subject to general jurisdiction only in its place of incorporation or principal place of business.” SPV Osus Ltd. v. UBS AG , 882 F.3d 333, 343 (2d Cir. 2018). As this Court has previously noted—and as UBS’s unconteste d declaration filed below a ttests—“UBS AG’s place of incorporation and principal place of business is in Switzerland.” Id. While the Trustees’ reply brief appears to indirectly contest UBS’s Swi ss citizenship, their amended complaint itself alleges that UBS AG is a citizen of Switzerland. The Trustees nevertheless assert that the district court coul d exercise general jurisdiction over UBS because UBS “provides banking and i nvestment services in New York” and “is subject to the regulations of the New York State Department of Financial Services . . . and the New York State Banking Authority.” Appellants’ Br. 13. However, th is Court, “in interpreting Daimler , noted that the case expressly cast doubt on previous Supreme Court and New York6 Court of Appeals cases that perm itted general jurisdiction on the ba sis that a foreign corporation was doing business thro ugh a local branch offi ce in the forum.” SPV Osus , 882 F.3d at 343. As this Court has held in another similar suit, UBS AG’s contacts with New York do not “render this an exceptional case” in which general jurisdiction can be exercised in New York. Id. While the Trustees argue that jurisdictional discovery should have been granted, they have not made the “prima facie showing of person al jurisdiction” required to surpass a motion to dismiss, see Dorchester Fin. Sec. , 722 F.3d at 86, and they have not identified any additional information they would hope or expect to obtain that woul d change the result. 3
We have considered all of the Trustees’ contentions on appeal and have found in them no basis for reversal. For the reasons stated he rein, the judgment of th e district court is AFFIRMED

. FOR THE COURT: Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk

3 As we find the due process element of personal jurisdiction a sufficient basis for affirming, we need not a ddress the district court’s determin ations that the New York long-arm statute provides no basis for pe rsonal jurisdiction or that the Trustees’ claims are untimely.