Opinion ID: 1218154
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Purposeful Availment and Direction: The Effects Test

Text: The district court recited our three-prong test for personal jurisdiction, but did not clearly indicate that it was employing the effects test as to the first prong. Because Menken's Complaint alleges negligence, wrongful interference with contractual relations, civil extortion, and a violation of A.R.S. § 33-420, his cause of action arises primarily in tort; therefore, Calder 's effect's test is the proper framework for the first prong's purposeful availment and direction analysis. Under this analysis, Menken has alleged sufficient facts to satisfy the three requirements of the effects test. The court addresses each of the test's three elements in turn.
Menken alleges that Tomerlin committed an intentional act by intentionally interfering with his contractual relation with a third party for the pending sale of his property; that Tomerlin demanded a sum of money in excess of the lawful amount due under the judgment; and that Tomerlin intentionally violated A.R.S. § 33-420 by recording an invalid lien.
Second, Menken alleges that Tomerlin's intentional conduct was expressly aimed at the forum state because the act of trying to extract the judgment payoff was aimed at tying up Menken's real property located in Arizona. The requirement is satisfied when the defendant is alleged to have engaged in wrongful conduct targeted at a plaintiff whom the defendant knows to be a resident of the forum state. Dole Food Co., Inc. v. Watts, 303 F.3d 1104, 1111 (9th Cir.2002) (internal citation and quotation signals omitted). Menken sufficiently alleges that Tomerlin engaged in wrongful conduct targeted at Menken, whom Tomerlin knew to be a resident of Arizona.
Finally, Menken alleged that the action caused harm that Tomerlin knew was likely to be suffered in Arizona. The Complaint alleges that Menken told Tomerlin that title to his Arizona property was clouded by the allegedly invalid judgment lien and that he could not sell the property with the lien in place. When Tomerlin improperly recorded the lien in Arizona and then refused to accept the legally owed amount as full satisfaction of the lien, Tomerlin caused harm knowing that it would be suffered in Arizona. Menken has sufficiently alleged the three requirements of the effects test and has met his burden as to the first prong.