Opinion ID: 195899
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Establishing and Testing Personal Jurisdiction.

Text: 28 It is apodictic that the plaintiff, who bears the burden of proving the existence of in personam jurisdiction, must carry the devoir of persuasion on the elements of relatedness and minimum contacts. See Ticketmaster, 26 F.3d at 207 n. 9; Martel v. Stafford, 992 F.2d 1244, 1247 n. 5 (1st Cir.1993); Donatelli, 893 F.2d at 468. But this is merely one step along the path; to allocate the burden is neither to define the evidentiary showing necessary to meet it nor to explain whether that showing varies from context to context. 29 We addressed these important issues in Boit. There, we tried to formulate a procedural matrix that would serve to endow the decisional process with appropriate degrees of economy and manageability. That endeavor produced a trio of standards, each corresponding to a level of analysis, that might usefully be employed when a trial court comes to grips with a motion to dismiss for want of personal jurisdiction. 30 The most conventional of these methods permits the district court to consider only whether the plaintiff has proffered evidence that, if credited, is enough to support findings of all facts essential to personal jurisdiction. Boit, 967 F.2d at 675. To make a prima facie showing of this calibre, the plaintiff ordinarily cannot rest upon the pleadings, but is obliged to adduce evidence of specific facts. See id. Withal, the district court acts not as a factfinder, but as a data collector. That is to say, the court, in a manner reminiscent of its role when a motion for summary judgment is on the table, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c), must accept the plaintiff's (properly documented) evidentiary proffers as true for the purpose of determining the adequacy of the prima facie jurisdictional showing. Despite the lack of differential factfinding, this device is a useful means of screening out cases in which personal jurisdiction is obviously lacking, and those in which the jurisdictional challenge is patently bogus. However, the approach offers little assistance in closer, harder-to-call cases, particularly those that feature conflicting versions of the facts. See, e.g., General Contracting & Trading Co. v. Interpole, Inc., 899 F.2d 109 (1st Cir.1990). 31 A second option open to the court is to embark on a factfinding mission in the traditional way, taking evidence and measuring the plaintiff's jurisdictional showing against a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard. In Boit, we stated that this standard may appropriately be invoked when a court 32 determine[s] that in the circumstances of a particular case it is unfair to force an out-of-state defendant to incur the expense and burden of a trial on the merits in the local forum without first requiring more of the plaintiff than a prima facie showing of facts essential to in personam jurisdiction. A court may so determine, for example, when the proffered evidence is conflicting and the record is rife with contradictions, or when a plaintiff's affidavits are patently incredible.... 33 Boit, 967 F.2d at 676 (offering examples). Virtually by definition, the preponderance standard necessitates a full-blown evidentiary hearing at which the court will adjudicate the jurisdictional issue definitively before the case reaches trial. 4 In that mode, the court will consider[ ] all relevant evidence proffered by the parties and mak[e] all factual findings essential to disposition of the motion. Id. But this method must be used discreetly. For one thing, pretrial evidentiary hearings are relatively cumbersome creatures, and, if used routinely, can squander judicial resources. For another thing, since this method contemplates a binding adjudication, the court's factual determinations ordinarily will have preclusive effect, and, thus, at least in situations in which the facts pertinent to jurisdiction and the facts pertinent to the merits are identical, or nearly so, profligate use of the preponderance method can all too easily verge on a deprivation of the right to trial by jury. 34 In Boit, we recognized these difficulties. We also recognized that the prima facie and preponderance-of-the-evidence standards are merely two of several possible models, and that trial courts need not confine themselves to choosing between these two levels of evidentiary scrutiny. See id. at 677. In the special circumstance in which the assertion of jurisdiction is bound up with the claim on the merits, the possibility of preclusion renders use of the preponderance standard troubling, while the possibility of permitting a dubious case to proceed beyond the pleading stage, and even to trial, though the court eventually will be found to lack jurisdiction, renders use of the prima facie standard undesirable. 35 The Boit panel anticipated that, when this special circumstance arose, trial courts might steer a middle course by engaging in some differential factfinding, limited to probable outcomes as opposed to definitive findings of fact, thereby skirting potential preclusionary problems while at the same time enhancing the courts' ability to weed out unfounded claims of jurisdiction. Utilizing this intermediate standard, a district court, even though allowing an evidentiary hearing and weighing evidence to make findings ... may merely find whether the plaintiff has shown a likelihood of the existence of each fact necessary to support personal jurisdiction. Id. This showing constitutes an assurance that the circumstances justify imposing on a foreign defendant the burdens of trial in a strange forum, but leaves to the time of trial a binding resolution of the factual disputes common to both the jurisdictional issue and the merits of the claim. See id. at 678. 36 Unlike the prima facie standard, and like the preponderance standard, this third method, which we sometimes call the likelihood standard, 37 involves factfinding rather than merely making a ruling of law regarding sufficiency of the evidence to present a fact question. Like the first and unlike the second method, however, the third method avoids potentially troubling issues of issue preclusion or law of the case (at least when the court denies the motion) because a determination by such an intermediate standard ... does not purport to be a finding by the same standard on the same issue as will be decided at trial. 38 Id. 39 We acknowledge that having an array of standards at the ready may be thought too much of a good thing. However, even though an intermediate standard will not be used with great frequency, the need for one is manifest. We can postulate a variety of common facts scenarios in which the facts necessary to sustain personal jurisdiction are intimately bound up with facts necessary to establish the merits of the underlying claim. See, e.g., Ann Althouse, The Use of Conspiracy Theory to Establish In Personam Jurisdiction: A Due Process Analysis, 52 Fordham L.Rev. 234, 247-51 (1983) (noting, though not adequately resolving, the problem created in situations where proving the facts upon which jurisdiction depends is viewed as inextricably tied to the substantive merits of the case). It is precisely because of the incidence of these situations--situations in which the issue of jurisdiction is factually enmeshed with the merits of the suit--that we recognized in Boit the need for an intermediate standard of proof and, correspondingly, an intermediate standard of judicial analysis. 40