Opinion ID: 780718
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Third Circuit Cases

Text: 20 The opinion in Zippo Mfg. Co. v. Zippo Dot Com, Inc., 952 F.Supp. 1119 (W.D.Pa. 1997) has become a seminal authority regarding personal jurisdiction based upon the operation of an Internet web site. The court in Zippo stressed that the propriety of exercising jurisdiction depends on where on a sliding scale of commercial interactivity the web site falls. In cases where the defendant is clearly doing business through its web site in the forum state, and where the claim relates to or arises out of use of the web site, the Zippo court held that personal jurisdiction exists. Id. at 1124. In reaching this conclusion, the Zippo court relied on CompuServe, Inc. v. Patterson, 89 F.3d 1257 (6th Cir. 1996), which found the exercise of personal jurisdiction to be proper where the commercial web site's interactivity reflected specifically intended interaction with residents of the forum state. Zippo, 952 F.Supp. at 1124 (citing CompuServe, 89 F.3d at 1264-66). 21 Analyzing the case before it, the Zippo court similarly underscored the intentional nature of the defendant's conduct vis-a-vis the forum state. In Zippo, the defendant had purposefully availed itself of doing business in Pennsylvania when it repeatedly and consciously chose to process Pennsylvania residents' applications and to assign them passwords, knowing that the contacts would result in business relationships with Pennsylvania customers. Id. at 1126. The court summarized the pivotal importance of intentionality as follows: 22 When a defendant makes a conscious choice to conduct business with the residents of a forum state, `it has clear notice that it is subject to suit there.'... If [the defendant] had not wanted to be amenable to jurisdiction in Pennsylvania,... it could have chosen not to sell its services to Pennsylvania residents. 23 Id. at 1126-27 (citing World-Wide Volkswagen, 444 U.S. at 297, 100 S.Ct. 559). 24 Since Zippo, several district court decisions from this Circuit have made explicit the requirement that the defendant intentionally interact with the forum state via the web site in order to show purposeful availment and, in turn, justify the exercise of specific personal jurisdiction. See, e.g., S. Morantz, Inc. v. Hang & Shine Ultrasonics, Inc., 79 F.Supp.2d 537, 540 (E.D.Pa.1999) (observing that a web site targeted at a particular jurisdiction is likely to give rise to personal jurisdiction.). As another district court in this Circuit put it, [c]ourts have repeatedly recognized that there must be `something more' ... to demonstrate that the defendant directed its activity towards the forum state.  Desktop Technologies, Inc. v. Colorworks Reprod. & Design, 1999 WL 98572, at  (E.D.Pa. Feb.25, 1999) (citation omitted) (emphasis added). 25