Opinion ID: 781750
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Purposeful availment as to DM

Text: 42 As with NTW, the district court concluded that DM did not purposefully avail itself of the forum state and found personal jurisdiction lacking. On appeal, Bridgeport sets forth numerous reasons as to why DM has purposefully availed itself of the Tennessee forum. We find two of these arguments persuasive and dispositive as to a finding of purposeful availment and thus do not address the remainder of Appellants' arguments. 43
44 The record reflects that DM entered into a distribution contract with Ryco Distribution Partners (Ryco) in which DM sought nationwide distribution of its records throughout the United States, its territories, commonwealth, possessions.... Relying upon Tobin, Bridgeport asserts that this nationwide distribution agreement is sufficient for a finding of purposeful availment. 45 In Tobin, the Court indeed found purposeful availment based on the existence of a nationwide distribution agreement. Saliently, the territory in the Tobin distribution agreement was defined as the United States of America, its territories and possessions, and Puerto Rico. Tobin, 993 F.2d at 543. Although in Tobin we mentioned a number of factors supporting our finding of purposeful availment, the primary emphasis of the opinion is on the deliberate decision [Duphar made] to market ritodrine in all 50 states, as opposed to seeking only a regional distribution agreement. Id. We found purposeful availment, even though Duphar did nothing in particular to purposefully avail itself of the Kentucky market as distinguished from any other state in the union. Id. at 544. 46 In the instant action, DM does not explicitly admit that it affirmatively required Ryco to distribute its records throughout the foregoing territory. However, DM does admit, via deposition testimony of DM's president Mark Watson, that his understanding was that DM's recordings would be distributed nationwide, in all 50 states pursuant to the parties' agreement. J.A. 71. The language in the DM-Ryco agreement is nearly identical to that in Tobin, and viewing the facts in a light most favorable to Appellants, the Court finds that the foregoing supports a prima facie purposeful availment finding. 11 47
48 As further support for a finding of purposeful availment, Bridgeport notes that DM operates a website, dmrecords.com, through which users can access DM's catalog and purchase DM's records. Through the DM site, users select a recording of choice and then are redirected to Amazon.com to complete their purchases. 49 As indicated supra, operation of an Internet website can constitute the purposeful availment of the privilege of acting in a forum state under the first Mohasco factor `if the website is interactive to a degree that reveals specifically intended interaction with residents of the state.' Bird, 289 F.3d at 874 (quoting Neogen, 282 F.3d at 890). In Bird, the court concluded that by maintaining a website on which Ohio residents can register domain names and by allegedly accepting the business of 4,666 Ohio residents, the Dotster defendants have satisfied the purposeful-availment requirement. Id. The defendants in Bird operated a website through which users could register domain names and the plaintiff merely seized on defendants' admission that they processed 333,333 Internet domain-name registrations. Plaintiffs then estimated a number of sales that were likely to have occurred in Ohio. According to Bird, 70% of the defendants' sales occurred in the U.S. Bird then divided the 70% of the 333,333 sales equally among the 50 states, which resulted in the conclusion that 4,666 transactions involved an Ohio resident. Specifically noting that it must draw all permissible inferences in favor of Bird at this stage of the proceedings, because no evidentiary hearing or discovery has occurred, id. at 872, the Bird court regarded the foregoing evidence as sufficient to establish purposeful availment. 50 In the instant action, as in Bird, there is evidence indicating the volume of business DM conducts through the internet for at least two of the allegedly infringing albums, i.e., 36 internet sales of Tag Team and 30 of Future Rhythm. The facts are not clear regarding the number of Amazon.com sales that might have originated by linking through the DM website, but viewing the cumulative facts in Appellants' favor, we conclude that Bridgeport has adduced evidence sufficient to support a prima facie finding of purposeful availment.