UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA

FORT WAYNE DIVISION

LAKE LITE INC.,

Plaintiff, 

v.

UNIVERSAL FOREST PRODUCTS, 

INC., et al.,

Defendants.

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Case No. 1:14-CV-337 JD

OPINION AND ORDER

This case arises out of the parties’ exploration of a joint product development and 

distribution project. According to the plaintiff, Lake Lite Inc., it disclosed various intellectual 

property and proprietary information relating to one of its new products to the defendants, 

subject to a mutual non-disclosure agreement. The defendants ultimately declined to enter a 

license agreement, yet they allegedly developed and began marketing the product anyway. Lake 

Lite thus filed this suit, asserting claims of copyright infringement, patent infringement, breach 

of contract, breach of the implied duty of good faith, violation of the Indiana Trade Secret Act, 

and unjust enrichment. Two of the defendants, Universal Consumer Products, Inc. and Maine 

Ornamental, LLC, answered the complaint, while the third defendant, their parent company, 

Universal Forest Products, Inc., moved to dismiss the claims against it for lack of personal 

jurisdiction. [DE 20]. For the following reasons, the Court grants the motion.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Lake Lite is in the business of designing and selling dock lights and other related 

products and accessories in the boating/dock industry. [DE 1]. It is incorporated in the State of 

Indiana, and its principal place of business is in Laotto, Indiana. In April 2012, Lake Lite began 
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rolling out a new line of solar dock light products, including its Solar Dock Dots. It began 

accepting orders and shipping the products to consumers and retail distribution customers in the 

following months. In July 2012, a Lake Lite employee was contacted by Rick Preble of 

Universal Forest Products, which is incorporated and has its principal place of business in 

Michigan. Mr. Preble inquired as to the possibility of collaborating with Lake Lite to provide the 

Solar Dock Dot products to Universal Forest Products’ customers, or for Universal Forest 

Products to license the products from Lake Lite. Lake Lite forwarded samples of the products to 

Universal Forest Products on August 22, 2012, and representatives from the companies met the 

following month. The record does not reflect the location of that meeting or of any of the other 

communications.

Following that meeting, Lake Lite entered a mutual non-disclosure agreement with 

Universal Consumer Products, Inc., a subsidiary of Universal Forest Products. Thereafter, Lake 

Lite forwarded copies of copyrighted design work for the Solar Dock Dot products to Universal 

Forest Products. At Universal Forest Products’ requests, Lake Lite also completed a series of 

modifications to the product design. Lake Lite was assured by a Universal Forest Products 

employee that it was protected by the non-disclosure agreement it had signed. It also had a 

number of contacts by email with Universal Forest Products employees relative to different 

aspects of the project during this time. The record does not indicate where the Lake Lite 

employees involved in these interactions were located, though, or where Lake Late completed 

the product modifications. Ultimately, the parties were unable to reach a licensing agreement, 

and they discontinued contact in August 2013.

On September 17, 2014, Lake Lite’s founder and president, Jeffrey Martzall, visited a 

Lowe’s store, where he found a product for sale named Solar Deck and Dock Lights. The 
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product was sold under the brand name of Maine Ornamental, which is another subsidiary of 

Universal Forest Products.1 Lake Lite contends that this product is the embodiment of the 

product Lake Lite designed and developed, and that sale of that product violated several of its 

intellectual property rights, as well as the non-disclosure agreement. It therefore filed a sevencount complaint against the three related companies in federal court in the Northern District of 

Indiana. Universal Consumer Products and Maine Ornamental appeared and filed an answer, but 

Universal Forest Products moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, arguing that it has 

had no relevant contacts with the State of Indiana. Lake Lite did not seek any jurisdictional 

discovery, but filed a response brief to which it attached an affidavit from Mr. Martzall detailing 

Lake Lite’s interactions with Universal Forest Products. The motion is now ripe for ruling.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Under Rule 12(b)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a party may move to 

dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. Once a defendant moves to dismiss on that basis, “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). To that end, the parties 

may submit, and a court may consider, materials outside of the pleadings. Id. In ruling on such a 

motion, a court must first determine whether the plaintiff has made out a prima facie case of 

personal jurisdiction. Id.; Hyatt Int’l Corp. v. Coco, 302 F.3d 707, 713 (7th Cir. 2002). At that 

stage, a court must “take as true all well-pleaded facts alleged in the complaint and resolve any 

factual disputes in the affidavits in favor of the plaintiff.” Tamburo v. Dworkin, 601 F.3d 693, 

700 (7th Cir. 2010); Purdue, 338 F.3d at 782. If the plaintiff meets that initial burden but there 

 1 According to Universal Forest Products, the products in question have only been sold by 

Universal Consumer Products and by Maine Ornamental, not by Universal Forest Products, 

which is primarily a holding company and does not sell any products at all in this category of 

products. [DE 21-1; DE 25 p. 5].
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are material factual disputes, the Court must then hold an evidentiary hearing, at which point the 

plaintiff must prove any facts supporting jurisdiction by a preponderance of the evidence. Hyatt, 

302 F.3d at 713.

III. DISCUSSION

Universal Forest Products moves to dismiss all claims against it for lack of personal 

jurisdiction. For each of the claims at issue, the Court has personal jurisdiction over a defendant 

to the same extent a state court in this forum could exercise personal jurisdiction over that 

defendant. Advanced Tactical Ordnance Sys., LLC v. Real Action Paintball, Inc., 751 F.3d 796, 

800 (7th Cir. 2014). Here, Indiana’s long-arm statute permits its courts to exercise personal 

jurisdiction to the full extent permitted under federal law. Id.; LinkAmerica Corp. v. Cox, 857 

N.E.2d 961, 967 (Ind. 2006) (“Indiana’s long-arm provision now extends to the limits of the 

Constitution.”). Therefore, to determine whether it may exercise jurisdiction over Universal 

Forest Products, the Court must decide “whether ‘the exercise of jurisdiction comports with the 

limits imposed by federal due process.’” Advanced Tactical, 751 F.3d at 800 (quoting Walden v. 

Fiore, 134 S. Ct. 1115, 1121 (2014)).

“The Due Process Clause protects an individual’s liberty interest in not being subject to 

the binding judgments of a forum with which he has established no meaningful ‘contacts, ties, or 

relations.’” Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 471–72 (1985) (quoting Int’l Shoe v. 

Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 319 (1945). This requires that “individuals have ‘fair warning that a 

particular activity may subject them to the jurisdiction of a foreign sovereign . . . .’” Id. (quoting 

Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U.S. 186, 218 (1977)). “Where a forum seeks to assert specific 

jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant who has not consented to suit there, this ‘fair warning’ 

requirement is satisfied if the defendant has ‘purposefully directed’ his activities at residents of 

the forum, Keeton v. Hustler Magazine, Inc., 465 U.S. 770, 774 (1984), and the litigation results 
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from alleged injuries that ‘arise out of or relate to’ those activities, Helicopteros Nacionales de 

Colombia, S.A. v. Hall, 466 U.S. 408, 414 (1984).” Burger King, 471 U.S. at 472–73. A party 

may also be subject to general jurisdiction, meaning jurisdiction over matters unrelated to the 

party’s connection with the forum State, where the party’s “affiliations with the State are so 

‘continuous and systematic’ as to render them essentially at home in the forum State.” Daimler 

AG v. Bauman, 134 S. Ct. 746, 754 (2014) (quoting Goodyear Dunlop Ties Operations, S.A. v. 

Brown, 131 S. Ct. 2846, 2851 (2011)). Here, Lake Lite focuses solely on specific jurisdiction, 

and makes no effort to establish that Universal Forest Products is subject to general jurisdiction 

in Indiana.

“The inquiry whether a forum State may assert specific jurisdiction over a nonresident 

defendant ‘focuses on the relationship among the defendant, the forum, and the litigation.’” 

Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1121 (quoting Keeton, 465 U.S. at 775). The “constitutional touchstone” 

for specific jurisdiction “remains whether the defendant purposefully established ‘minimum 

contacts’ in the forum States.” Burger King, 471 U.S. at 474. The “‘minimum contacts’ analysis 

looks to the defendant’s contacts with the forum State itself, not the defendant’s contacts with 

persons who reside there.” Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1122. “[I]t is essential in each case that there be 

some act by which the defendant purposefully avails itself of the privilege of conducting 

activities within the forum State, thus invoking the benefits and protections of its law.” Burger 

King, 471 U.S. at 475 (quoting Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U.S. 235 (1958)).2

 2 Neither party acknowledges the issue, but since Lake Lite’s complaint asserts claims of patent 

infringement, the personal jurisdiction analysis as to those claims is governed by the law of the 

Federal Circuit. Silent Drive, Inc. v. Strong Indus., Inc. 326 F.3d 1194, 1201 (Fed. Cir. 2003). 

The remaining claims, which are not “intimately related to patent law,” are governed by the law 

of the applicable regional circuit, the Seventh Circuit. Id.; Polymer Tech. Sys., Inc. v. Jant 

Pharmacal Corp., No. 1:14-cv-1317, 2015 WL 1526058, at *1 (S.D. Ind. Apr. 3, 2015) 

(analyzing personal jurisdiction as to a patent infringement claim under Federal Circuit law, and 
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In arguing that Universal Forest Products is subject to specific jurisdiction in Indiana, 

Lake Lite points to a number of contacts that employees of Universal Forest Products had with it 

relative to the products in question. It states that one of its employees was first contacted by Rick 

Preble of Universal Forest Products regarding the potential for Lake Lite to help develop a solar 

dock light product. Subsequently, Sue Labrie, another Universal Forest Products employee, 

contacted Lake Lite employees regarding the development of that product. Thereafter, Ms. 

Labrie “initiated, received or was copied on at least 50 emails related to the development of the 

solar dock light product by Lake Lite for [Universal Forest Products] and the compensation to be 

paid Lake Lite on account thereof.” [DE 24-1 ¶ 5]. In one of those emails, Ms. Labrie asked that 

Lake Lite send a sample of one of the products to Universal Forest Products’ office in Poulsbo, 

Washington. In another, she asked for information about Lake Lite’s patents, and assured Lake 

Lite that it was protected by the mutual non-disclosure agreement it had signed. The contacts 

between the parties took place from July or September 2012 until August 2013, at which point 

the parties discontinued contact after failing to reach a licensing agreement.

Conspicuously absent from this account, however, is any mention of how Universal 

Forest Products’ conduct connected it to Indiana, instead of just to a party that happened to be a 

citizen of Indiana. In fact, Mr. Martzall’s affidavit—the sole support Lake Lite offered in 

response to the motion to dismiss—does not even use the word “Indiana,” nor does that word 

appear in the statement of facts in Lake Lite’s response brief.3 Instead of demonstrating 

Universal Forest Products’ contacts with Indiana relative to this litigation, Lake Lite only 

 

a trade dress infringement claim under Seventh Circuit law). The difference does not affect the 

outcome here, though, so the Court need not further distinguish between the two sources of law.

3 The only fact in the entire brief connecting any aspect of this litigation to Indiana is the 

statement that Indiana is “Lake Lite’s home state.” [DE 24 p. 11].
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discusses Universal Forest Products’ contacts with Lake Lite relative to this litigation, without 

indicating whether or how any of those contacts related to Indiana, such as, for example, by 

saying whether the Lake Lite employees involved in those interactions were located in Indiana. 

But that is not enough. As noted above, the focus of the specific jurisdiction inquiry is “the 

relationship among the defendant, the forum, and the litigation,” Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1121 

(emphasis added), not the relationship among the defendant, the plaintiff, and the litigation. Id. at 

1122 (stating that the “‘minimum contacts’ analysis looks to the defendant’s contacts with the 

forum State itself, not the defendant’s contacts with persons who reside there”); Polymer Tech, 

2015 WL 1526058, at *7 (“Plaintiff’s argument inappropriately shifts the jurisdictional inquiry 

from Defendants’ suit-related contacts with the forum to the Defendants’ contacts with 

Plaintiff.”). Lake Lite fails to show that Universal Forest Products’ interactions with it reached 

into Indiana (physically or not), caused activity to take place in Indiana, or were otherwise 

connected to Indiana. Perhaps those connections exist, but the record does not permit a 

reasonable inference, as opposed to speculation, that Universal Forest Products’ actions 

encompassed any contacts with the forum of Indiana.4 Therefore, Lake Lite has failed to 

establish a prima facie case of personal jurisdiction over Universal Forest Products in Indiana.

In arguing that Universal Forest Products’ relationship with Lake Lite is itself sufficient 

to create personal jurisdiction in this district, Lake Lite cites language from Burger King, in 

which the Supreme Court stated that “parties who ‘reach beyond one state and create continuing 

 4 Since those contacts are thus not enough to support jurisdiction anyway, the Court need not 

reach Universal Forest Products’ argument that those contacts should not even be attributed to it 

since they were merely administrative services it provided on behalf of its subsidiaries. See Cent. 

States, Se. & Sw. Areas Pension Fund v. Reimer Express World Corp., 230 F.3d 934, 945–46 

(7th Cir. 2000) (holding that a parent company’s provision of standard administrative services to 

its subsidiary did not create sufficient minimum contacts to support the exercise of jurisdiction).
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relationships and obligations with citizens of another state’ are subject to regulation and 

sanctions in the other State for the consequences of their activities.” Burger King, 471 U.S. at 

473 (quoting Travelers Health Ass’n v. Virginia, 339 U.S. 643, 647 (1950)). The Court’s analysis 

made clear, though, that Burger King’s residence in Florida was not sufficient to create personal 

jurisdiction in Florida over the Michigan-based defendant in a dispute over their franchise 

agreement. Rather, in finding that jurisdiction in Florida was proper, the Court relied on the facts 

that the parties’ agreement “envisioned continuing and wide-reaching contacts with Burger King 

in Florida,” entailed “long-term and exacting regulation of [the defendant’s] business from 

Burger King’s Miami headquarters,” and “required payments in Miami,” among others. Id. at 

480. The defendant had also “carried on a continuous course of direct communications by mail 

and by telephone” with Burger King’s Miami headquarters, and “it was the Miami headquarters 

that made the key negotiating decisions out of which the instant litigation arose.” Id. at 481. The 

Court also noted that substantial evidence showed that the defendant “most certainly knew that 

he was affiliating himself with an enterprise based primarily in Florida,” and the parties’ 

agreement specified that it was governed by Florida law. Id.

Those types of connections to the forum state are entirely absent from the record in this 

case. For example, there is no indication where the Lake Lite employees with whom Universal 

Forest Products interacted were located, whether in Indiana or elsewhere, so the Court can only 

speculate as to whether Universal Forest Products’ contacts with those employees reached into 

Indiana. And though the complaint alleges that Lake Lite continually modified the product in 

question at Universal Forest Products’ request, there is no indication where it performed that 

work. Nor is it apparent that Universal Forest Products subjected itself to any obligations or 

oversight in Indiana. Further, there is no evidence that Universal Forest Products knew it was 
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interacting with an Indiana entity or that its contacts with Lake Lite had anything to do with the 

State of Indiana.

The Seventh Circuit has also found that a defendant initiating the relationship with the 

plaintiff can be an important fact in support of exercising jurisdiction over that defendant in the 

plaintiff’s home state. E.g., Heritage House Rests., Inc. v. Cont’l Funding Grp., Inc., 906 F.2d 

276, 283–84 (7th Cir. 1990); Hall’s Specialties, Inc. v. Schupbach, 758 F.2d 214, 216–17 (7th 

Cir. 1985); Madison Consulting Grp. v. South Carolina, 751 F.2d 1193, 1202–03 (7th Cir. 

1985); see N. Grain Marketing, LLC v. Greving, 743 F.3d 487, 494 (7th Cir. 2014). Here, Lake 

Lite alleges that a Universal Forest Products employee initiated their relationship by contacting 

its vice president to discuss jointly developing the product, so that consideration could have 

potentially helped its case.

The relevance of that consideration, though, is still the contact it represents between the 

defendant and the forum state; when the conduct that initiates the relationship does not itself 

involve the forum state, it is not enough to support jurisdiction, even if it initiates a relationship 

with a resident of that state. Compare Hall’s Specialties, 758 F.2d at 216–17 (finding no personal 

jurisdiction even though the defendant initiated the relationship, since he did not knowingly 

cause his contact to enter the forum state), and Solo Cup Co. v. First Sw. Vending & Food Serv., 

No. 07 C 4384, 2008 WL 2787442, at *5 (N.D. Ill. July 17, 2008) (finding no personal 

jurisdiction where the defendant initiated the relationship through contacts that occurred outside 

of the forum state), with Madison Consulting, 751 F.2d at 1202–03 (finding personal jurisdiction 

proper in part because the defendant initiated the relationship by placing a phone call to the 

plaintiff in the forum state), and Heritage House, 906 F.2d at 278, 283–84 (finding personal 

jurisdiction where the defendant initiated the relationship through a letter sent to the plaintiff in 
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the forum state and through emails sent to an employee located in that state). There is no 

indication here as to how Universal Forest Products contacted Lake Lite, or whether it involved a 

communication inside of or directed to Indiana. As far as is apparent from the record, Universal 

Forest Products could have met in person in Michigan with a Lake Lite employee based outside 

of Indiana, which would not have created any link between Universal Forest Products and 

Indiana. That fact thus does not establish jurisdiction, either.

Finally, Lake Lite argues that jurisdiction is proper in this venue because Universal 

Forest Products should have known “that its actions would be felt most in Indiana, Lake Lite’s 

home state.” [DE 24 p. 11]. This argument falls short, too, for similar reasons.5 As the Supreme 

Court discussed in Walden, “[r]egardless of where a plaintiff lives or works, an injury is 

jurisdictionally relevant only insofar as it shows that the defendant has formed a contact with the 

forum State. The proper question is not where the plaintiff experienced a particular injury or 

effect but whether the defendant’s conduct connects him to the forum in a meaningful way.” 134 

S. Ct. at 1125 (noting also that “Calder made clear that a mere injury to a forum resident is not a 

sufficient connection to the forum”). Thus, even though the plaintiff in that case was a resident of 

and felt the resulting harm in Nevada, jurisdiction in Nevada was improper where the 

defendant’s conduct occurred entirely in Georgia. Id. at 1124–26. Those facts contrasted with 

Calder, where jurisdiction was proper in the plaintiff’s home state of California since the 

defendant wrote an allegedly defamatory article using sources in California, published it in a 

 5 Lake Lite does not raise or develop any argument based on any products being sold in this 

venue, nor did it make any attempt to counter Universal Forest Products’ evidence that Universal 

Forest Products has not sold any of the products in question—that any sales were by the 

subsidiaries only. Accordingly, the Court addresses only the argument Lake Lite has raised, 

which is that it felt the harm in this venue, not whether any harm actually occurred in this venue 

that could give rise to personal jurisdiction over Universal Forest Products.
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magazine distributed most heavily in California, and damaged the plaintiff’s reputation most 

severely amongst the public in California. 465 U.S. at 788–91. Here, as previously discussed, 

even if Lake Lite felt harm in Indiana by virtue of its Indiana residence, there is no indication 

that any of Universal Forest Products’ conduct occurred in, was directed at, or connected it to 

Indiana in any meaningful way.

In sum, there is no evidence that Universal Forest Products reached outside of its own 

state or that it has directed any of its activities towards Indiana in particular. And Universal 

Forest Products’ interactions with a party that happens to be an Indiana citizen do not alone 

create the requisite contacts with the State of Indiana to justify exercising personal jurisdiction 

over it in an Indiana court. Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1122 (“[T]he plaintiff cannot be the only link 

between the defendant and the forum. Rather, it is the defendant’s conduct that must form the 

necessary connection with the forum State that is the basis for its jurisdiction over him.”); Burger 

King, 471 U.S. at 478 (“If the question is whether an individual’s contract with an out-of-state 

party alone can automatically establish sufficient minimum contacts in the other party’s home 

forum, we believe the answer clearly is that it cannot.”); Advanced Tactical, 751 F.3d at 802. 

Accordingly, Lake Lite has failed to establish that Universal Forest Products had such minimum 

contacts with the State of Indiana that exercising personal jurisdiction over it in this venue would 

comport with the Due Process Clause. The Court therefore need not also consider whether 

exercising personal jurisdiction over Universal Forest Products would offend “traditional notions 

of fair play and substantial justice.”6 N. Grain Marketing, LLC v. Greving, 743 F.3d 487, 496 

 6 Lake Lite’s argument on that point that Universal Forest Products would likely contest its 

amenability “to jurisdiction for its role in this matter in any jurisdiction” is misplaced, though, as 

it confuses liability with jurisdiction. [DE 24 p. 11]. Even if Universal Forest Products denies 

liability, it is at the very least subject to personal jurisdiction in Michigan, where it is 

incorporated and has its principal place of business. And if Lake Lite is concerned about 
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(7th Cir. 2014). Because Lake Lite has not met its burden of making a prima facie showing that 

Universal Forest Products is subject to personal jurisdiction in Indiana, the motion to dismiss 

must be granted.

IV. CONCLUSION

Universal Forest Products’ motion to dismiss [DE 20] is GRANTED, and Universal 

Forest Products is DISMISSED as a defendant in this action.

SO ORDERED.

ENTERED: August 3, 2015

 /s/ JON E. DEGUILIO 

Judge

United States District Court

 

duplicating its litigation efforts or the potential for inconsistent judgments, it could proceed 

against all three defendants in Michigan, where they are each incorporated.