IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 13-50941

MONKTON INSURANCE SERVICES, LIMITED, Acting by its Joint Official 

Liquidators, Gordon I. MacRae and Gwyn Hopkins,

Plaintiff

v.

WILLIAM G. RITTER,

Defendant–Third Party Plaintiff–

Appellant

v.

BUTTERFIELD BANK (CAYMAN) LIMITED,

Third Party Defendant–Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Western District of Texas

Before REAVLEY, ELROD, and SOUTHWICK, Circuit Judges.

JENNIFER WALKER ELROD, Circuit Judge:

William G. Ritter appeals the district court’s order denying his motion 

for jurisdictional discovery and granting Butterfield Bank (Cayman) Limited’s 

motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. For the following reasons, 

we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court. 

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

September 26, 2014

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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No. 13-50941

I

Defendant-Third Party Plaintiff-Appellant, William G. Ritter, is a 

resident of Odessa, Texas, and owns Geneva Insurance SPC Ltd. (Geneva). 

Geneva is incorporated and does business in the Cayman Islands. Monkton 

Insurance Services, Ltd. (Monkton) is an insurance manager incorporated and 

doing business in the Cayman Islands and, at all relevant times, managed 

Geneva. David Keith Self was the sole director and manager of Monkton. 

In March 2008, Self opened a Cayman bank account on behalf of Geneva 

with Third Party Defendant-Appellee, Butterfield Bank (Cayman) Limited 

(Butterfield), which is a Cayman bank organized and regulated under Cayman 

law and located on the island of Grand Cayman. Pursuant to this transaction, 

Self faxed several documents to Ritter, in Texas, for his signature (“the 

Contracts”). In the Contracts, Self and Ritter are both identified as “Director” 

of Geneva. The Contracts expressly provide that “[p]erformance [under the 

account] shall be at George Town, in the island of Grand Cayman, one of the 

said Cayman Islands.” They further provide that “legal relations and place of 

jurisdiction between Bank and customer [Geneva] shall be governed by the 

laws of the Cayman Islands.”

For the next three years, Geneva conducted business in the Cayman 

Islands, including withdrawing and depositing money in the Butterfield 

account. According to Ritter, Geneva sometimes received checks and wire

transfers from its customers in Texas for deposit in the Butterfield account, 

and it sometimes transferred funds from its account at Butterfield to those 

same clients. These transactions occurred twenty times over a three and onehalf year period. In each instance, it was Geneva—not Butterfield—that 

requested the transaction. Ritter also placed eight phone calls while in Texas,

to Butterfield, to arrange wire transfers or take other actions related to 

Geneva’s account. These calls were made over a total of four days during a 

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three and one-half year timeframe and totaled collectively about forty-five 

minutes. They were all initiated by Ritter.

During his management of Geneva, Self allegedly withdrew $435,000 

from Geneva’s account with Butterfield without Ritter’s consent. When Ritter 

found out, he demanded that Self repay him personally. Soon after, Monkton 

officials discovered that Self had transferred money from various client 

accounts to Ritter. As a result, Monkton sued Ritter in Odessa, Texas. Ritter 

then filed a third-party complaint against Butterfield alleging that Butterfield 

breached the Contracts with Geneva by failing to detect Self’s forged 

signatures on withdrawals from Geneva’s bank account. Butterfield moved to 

dismiss Ritter’s claims for lack of personal jurisdiction. Ritter then requested 

a continuance in order to conduct jurisdictional discovery. The district court 

denied Ritter’s request for discovery and granted Butterfield’s motion to 

dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. This appeal followed.

II

Ritter appeals the district court’s dismissal of his claims against 

Butterfield for lack of personal jurisdiction. He argues that Butterfield 

established sufficient minimum contacts with Texas for the district court to 

exercise both general and specific jurisdiction over it. We review the district 

court’s dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction de novo. ITL Int’l Inc. v. 

Constenla S.A., 669 F.3d 493, 496 (5th Cir. 2012). The plaintiff has the burden 

to make a prima facie showing that personal jurisdiction is proper. Luv N’ 

Care, Ltd. v. Insta-Mix, Inc., 438 F.3d 465, 469 (5th Cir. 2006). “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.” Revell v. Lidov, 317 F.3d 467, 469 (5th Cir. 2002) (internal 

quotation marks and citation omitted) (alterations in original). To establish 

that personal jurisdiction is proper, the plaintiff must show that the 

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nonresident defendant “purposefully availed [itself] of the benefits and 

protections of the forum state by establishing ‘minimum contacts’ with the 

forum state.” Latshaw v. Johnston, 167 F.3d 208, 211 (5th Cir. 1999) (quoting 

Int’l Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 316 (1945)). “Sufficient minimum 

contacts will give rise to either specific or general jurisdiction.” Revell, 317 

F.3d at 470. 

Ritter argues that Butterfield’s contacts with Texas through its website,1

telephone conversations with Ritter, and wire transfers to Texas banks are 

“continuous and systematic” enough to justify the exercise of general 

jurisdiction. We disagree.

The Supreme Court recently considered the requirements to establish

general jurisdiction in Daimler AG v. Bauman, 134 S. Ct. 746 (2014). The 

Court observed that the proper consideration when determining general 

jurisdiction is whether the defendant’s “‘affiliations with the State are so 

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

State.’” Id. at 761 (quoting Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, 

131 S. Ct. 2846, 2851 (2011)) (alteration in original). The Court held that for 

a corporation, “the place of incorporation and principal place of business” are 

where it is “at home” and are thus paradigm bases for jurisdiction. Id. at 760. 

It is, therefore, incredibly difficult to establish general jurisdiction in a forum 

other than the place of incorporation or principal place of business. See id.; 

Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia, S.A. v. Hall, 466 U.S. 408, 411–12, 418 

(1984). 

1 Ritter also argues that the district court committed reversible error when it acted as 

a fact finder and viewed Butterfield’s website on its own initiative. On appeal, we review the 

evidence in the record under a de novo standard and do not rely on the district court’s review 

of the website. The website at issue does not appear to be a proper subject for judicial notice, 

and in any event, the district court did not notify the parties that it intended to take judicial 

notice of the website. See Fed. R. Evid. 201(e).

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Here, Butterfield is a Cayman bank incorporated in the Cayman Islands 

with its principal place of business in George Town, Grand Cayman. 

Butterfield is therefore “at home” in the Cayman Islands. Daimler, 134 S. Ct. 

at 760. Ritter’s attempts to show otherwise are unavailing. First, the

communications between Butterfield and Ritter and the wire transfers 

Butterfield made to Texas banks were initiated by Ritter and Geneva, and thus 

cannot be said to render Butterfield “at home” in Texas. See Hanson v. 

Denckla, 357 U.S. 235, 253 (1958) (“The unilateral activity of those who claim 

some relationship with a nonresident defendant cannot satisfy the 

requirement of contact with the forum State.”). In addition, Ritter does not 

dispute that “performance” under the Contracts, including the wire transfers,

occurred in Cayman. 

Ritter points to Butterfield’s interactive website as a “continuous and 

systematic” contact. However, Butterfield’s website is insufficient to establish

general jurisdiction in this case. We have used the Zippo sliding scale when a 

plaintiff argues that personal jurisdiction exists due to a defendant’s website. 

Revell, 317 F.3d at 470 (citing Zippo Mfg. Co. v. Zippo Dot Com, Inc., 952 F. 

Supp. 1119, 1124 (W.D. Pa. 1997)). However, the sliding scale

[I]s not well adapted to the general jurisdiction inquiry, because 

even repeated contacts with forum residents by a foreign 

defendant may not constitute the requisite substantial, continuous 

and systematic contacts required for a finding of general 

jurisdiction—in other words, while it may be doing business with 

Texas, it is not doing business in Texas.

Id. at 471. In this case, at most, Butterfield’s website shows that Butterfield 

conducts business with Texas, not in Texas. Id. Because Butterfield is neither 

incorporated nor has its principal place of business in Texas, and because 

Ritter has not pleaded facts showing that Butterfield’s contacts with Texas are 

“continuous and systematic” enough to render it “at home” in Texas, general 

jurisdiction is improper. See Daimler, 134 S. Ct. at 761.

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Likewise, this court does not have specific jurisdiction over Butterfield. 

Specific jurisdiction “focuses on the relationship among the defendant, the 

forum, and the litigation.” Walden v. Fiore, 134 S. Ct. 1115, 1121 (2014) 

(quotation marks and citations omitted). “For a State to exercise jurisdiction 

consistent with due process, the defendant’s suit-related conduct must create 

a substantial connection with the forum State.” Id. This circuit applies a 

three-step analysis for the specific jurisdiction inquiry:

(1) whether the defendant has minimum contacts with the 

forum state, i.e., whether it purposely directed its activities 

toward the forum state or purposefully availed itself of the 

privileges of conducting activities there; (2) whether the 

plaintiff’s cause of action arises out of or results from the 

defendant’s forum-related contacts; and (3) whether the 

exercise of personal jurisdiction is fair and reasonable.

Seiferth v. Helicopteros Atuneros, Inc., 472 F.3d 266, 271 (5th Cir. 2006) 

(citation omitted). If Ritter can successfully establish the first two prongs, then 

the burden shifts to Butterfield to show that exercising jurisdiction would be 

unfair or unreasonable. Id. 

We have previously explained that a defendant does not have minimum 

contacts with a state when it does not have a physical presence in the state; it 

did not conduct business in the state; and the contract underlying the business 

transaction at issue in the lawsuit was not signed in the state and did not call 

for performance in the state. Id. at 272. Nor can the plaintiff’s own contacts 

with the forum be used to demonstrate contacts by the defendant. See Walden, 

134 S. Ct. at 1122 (“We have consistently rejected attempts to satisfy the 

defendant-focused ‘minimum contacts’ inquiry by demonstrating contacts 

between the plaintiff (or third parties) and the forum State.”); World-Wide 

Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286, 298 (1980) (determining that the 

actions of purchasers in driving automobiles sold by the defendant into the 

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forum does not create a relationship between the defendant and the forum); 

Hanson, 357 U.S. at 253. 

Ritter points to the following contacts to support specific jurisdiction: (1) 

Butterfield entered into an account contract with Geneva, through its owner 

and director, Ritter; (2) Self sent the account contract to Ritter in Texas; (3) 

Butterfield made wire transfers between Geneva’s account in the Cayman 

Islands and bank accounts in Texas; and (4) Butterfield communicated with 

Ritter over the telephone. However, these facts cannot support a finding that 

Butterfield has purposefully directed its activities towards Texas or 

purposefully availed itself of the privileges of conducting business in Texas. 

Butterfield entered into an account contract with Geneva, a Cayman 

company, in Cayman, not with Ritter, a Texas resident. Even if Butterfield 

had contracted with Ritter, “merely contracting with a resident of the forum 

state does not establish minimum contacts.” Moncrief Oil Int’l, Inc. v. OAO 

Gazprom, 481 F.3d 309, 311 (5th Cir. 2007). 

The remainder of Ritter’s evidence is insufficient to create specific 

jurisdiction as well. First, Self, not Butterfield, sent the Contracts to Ritter, 

so Butterfield cannot be said to have sent anything to Texas. Second, the

communications between Ritter and Butterfield and the wire transfers 

facilitated by Butterfield were initiated by Ritter or Geneva and are thus 

insufficient to confer jurisdiction. See, e.g., Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1122 (“[T]he 

relationship must arise out of contacts that the ‘defendant himself’ creates with 

the forum state.” (quoting Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 475 

(1985))); Pervasive Software Inc. v. Lexware GmbH & Co. KG, 688 F.3d 214, 

222 (5th Cir. 2012). Because Butterfield has not purposefully availed itself of 

the benefits and protections of Texas law through minimum contacts related 

to the cause of action, exercising specific jurisdiction over Butterfield would be 

improper. See Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1122–23.

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III

Finally, Ritter challenges the district court’s denial of his motion for 

jurisdictional discovery. We review a district court’s order denying a plaintiff’s 

request for jurisdictional discovery for abuse of discretion. Davila v. United 

States, 713 F.3d 248, 263–64 (5th Cir. 2013). “As the party opposing dismissal 

and requesting discovery, the plaintiffs bear the burden of demonstrating the 

necessity of discovery.” Id. at 264. A plaintiff is not entitled to jurisdictional 

discovery when “the record shows that the requested discovery is not likely to 

produce the facts needed to withstand a Rule 12(b)(1) motion.” Freeman v. 

United States, 556 F.3d 326, 342 (5th Cir. 2009).

The district court denied Ritter’s request to conduct jurisdictional 

discovery regarding: the nature, quality, and quantity of Butterfield’s contacts 

with the forum state; relevant documents and data supporting such contacts; 

and Butterfield’s communications relating to information, funds, or other data 

exchanged during the last five years between Butterfield and Texas. The 

district court determined that it was clear that Ritter had failed to make a 

prima facie showing of either specific or general jurisdiction. In addition, the 

district court did not believe that the request would add any “significant facts.” 

See Alpine View Co. Ltd. v. Atlas Copco AB, 205 F.3d 208, 221 (5th Cir. 2000).

On appeal, Ritter contends that the evidence before the district court 

presented a material fact issue as to Butterfield’s contacts with Texas. Ritter 

points to his communications with Butterfield, the twenty wire transfers 

Butterfield made to Texas residents, and Butterfield’s website. However, as 

Butterfield notes, the facts are not disputed. Here, additional discovery would 

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only allow Ritter to access more information regarding Butterfield’s other 

contacts with Texas.2

Even if Ritter found further evidence that Butterfield had communicated 

with other Texas residents, this would not be enough to show that Butterfield 

is “at home” in Texas. Goodyear, 131 S. Ct. at 2851. More evidence of wire 

transfers, phone calls, or other Butterfield customers with a tie to Texas will 

not establish jurisdiction. Pervasive Software, 688 F.3d at 231. Moreover, 

when questioned at oral argument, Ritter was unable to state how the 

discovery he requested would change the jurisdictional determination. The 

district court was well within its discretion in denying further discovery.

AFFIRMED. 

2 Ritter, as owner of Geneva, would have access to all information regarding 

Butterfield’s communications with him and Geneva’s clients in Texas; he would already be 

aware of Butterfield’s “suit-related conduct,” which would be the formation and execution of 

Geneva’s account contract. 

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