Opinion ID: 894827
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Substantive Relevance/Proximate Cause

Text: Far more structured than the but-for approach is the restrictive view of relatedness known as substantive relevance. As the name implies, this test requires forum-related contacts to be substantively relevant, or even necessary, to proof of the claim. See Tecre Co. v. Buttonpro, Inc., 387 F.Supp.2d 927, 933 (E.D.Wis.2005) (citing Marino v. Hyatt Corp., 793 F.2d 427, 430 (1st Cir.1986)). One iteration of this standard is known as the proximate cause test, reasoning that a contact that is the proximate or legal cause of an injury is substantively relevant to a cause of action that arises from it. The First, Second, and Eighth Circuits appear to have followed this approach. See United Elec., Radio & Mach. Workers of Am. v. 163 Pleasant St. Corp., 960 F.2d 1080, 1089 (1st Cir.1992); Pizarro v. Hoteles Concorde Int'l, C.A., 907 F.2d 1256, 1259-60 (1st Cir.1990); Marino, 793 F.2d at 429-30; Morris v. Barkbuster, Inc., 923 F.2d 1277, 1281 (8th Cir.1991); Pearrow v. Nat'l Life & Accident Ins. Co., 703 F.2d 1067, 1068-69 (8th Cir.1983); Gelfand v. Tanner Motor Tours, 339 F.2d 317, 321-22 (2d Cir.1964). Proximate cause requires the defendant's conduct to be both the cause in fact and the foreseeable cause of injury. See Doe v. Boys Clubs of Greater Dallas, Inc., 907 S.W.2d 472, 477 (Tex.1995). Under this more stringent relatedness standard, the purposeful contact that is a proximate cause of injury is an essential liability element and is thus substantively relevant to a plaintiff's claim of harm. In Marino, for instance, a Massachusetts resident brought suit in her home state against Hyatt, a Delaware corporation, for injuries sustained when she slipped in the bathtub of her Hawaii hotel room. Marino, 793 F.2d 427. Applying the relatedness requirement restrictively, the court concluded that Marino's claim did not arise from any business that Hyatt transacted in Massachusetts. Id. at 431. The court reasoned that [the] plaintiffs' advance reservation agreement with Hyatt would hardly be an important, or perhaps even a material, element of proof in [the] slip and fall case, and emphasized that to accept the plaintiffs' argument would be to render the `arising from' requirement . . . a virtual nullity. Id. at 430; see also Pizarro, 907 F.2d at 1259-60 (holding that personal injuries sustained in an Aruban hotel did not arise out of or result from advertisements in Puerto Rico). Courts in the Third and Tenth Circuits have similarly applied the substantive-relevance/proximate-cause standard. See Wims v. Beach Terrace Motor Inn, Inc., 759 F.Supp. 264, 267-69 (E.D.Pa.1991) (holding that the causal link between brochures the Inn sent to Pennsylvania and the injury sustained at the Inn in New Jersey was simply too attenuated to say that the injury arose from Beach Terrace's activities in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania); Dirks v. Carnival Cruise Lines, 642 F.Supp. 971, 975 (D.Kan.1986) (finding the connection between the cruise ship operator's negligent preparation of food on board ship in California and its acts of soliciting passengers and sending tickets to Kansas too tenuous to support jurisdiction). In Gelfand, the Second Circuit implicitly rejected the but-for approach on facts largely similar to those before us. 339 F.2d at 321-22. There, the Gelfands sued a tour bus company for injuries sustained during a motor vehicle crash. Id. at 318. The court held that the sale of bus tickets in New York was an insufficient basis to establish personal jurisdiction over the non-resident defendant because the claim did not arise from the sale. Id. at 321-22; see also Reich v. Signal Oil & Gas Co., 409 F.Supp. 846, 852 (S.D.Tex.1974) (concluding that a contract signed in Texas to build a helicopter that crashed in Ghana, killing two oil rig workers, was too tenuous a contact to say that the tort arose from it). Although Moki Mac urges us to follow the substantive-relevance approach, we have generally eschewed pinning jurisdictional analysis on the type of claim alleged. See, e.g., Michiana, 168 S.W.3d at 791-92. In Michiana, we warned against the dangers of the plaintiff's pleadings driving the analysis, stating that such an approach shifts a court's focus from the relationship among the defendant, the forum, and the litigation to the relationship among the plaintiff, the forum . . . and litigation. Id. at 790 (emphasis in original) (internal citations omitted). We reject a categorical approach that runs the danger of posing too narrow an inquiry. Although ostensibly imbued with a bright-line benefit, in practice it would require a court to delve into the merits to determine whether a jurisdictional fact is actually a legal cause of the injury. See Maloney, supra at 1290. Moreover, ease of application should not overshadow the principal constitutional due-process inquiry, which is whether the defendant has certain minimum contacts with [the forum state] such that the maintenance of the suit does not offend `traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.' Int'l Shoe, 326 U.S. at 316, 66 S.Ct. 154 (quoting Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U.S. 457, 463, 61 S.Ct. 339, 85 L.Ed. 278 (1940)). We note, too, that the substantive-relevance/proximate-cause standard is more stringent than the Supreme Court has, at least thus far, required. Helicopteros, 466 U.S. at 415 n. 10, 104 S.Ct. 1868.