Opinion ID: 808399
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Purposefully Avail

Text: Any contacts Winterthur may have had with Michigan were so attenuated that they could not demonstrate purposeful availment of the forum state. Our decision is consistent with case law. In Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 91 F.3d at 795-96, we found that due process was not satisfied even though Tryg sent a letter to Nationwide’s corporate headquarters in Ohio, entered into an agreement with Nationwide, sent an agent to Ohio, No. 11-1751 Miller v. AXA Winterthur Ins. Page 6 solicited business from Nationwide in Ohio, and realized profits from its contacts with Ohio. Winterthur sent a letter to Miller in Michigan and reached an agreement with Miller while both parties were in Switzerland, but no more. In LAK, we held that due process was not satisfied when a Michigan corporation sued an Indiana partnership over a property contract. See LAK, 885 F.2d at 1303. The plaintiff’s attorneys exchanged repeated phone calls and drafts of the agreement with the defendant in Indiana. The mere fact that the defendant in Indiana utilized the mail to send documents to Michigan did not constitute purposeful availment, and the contract between the parties did not qualify as an ongoing business relationship. Id. at 1301. Similarly, the Agreement was communicated between Winterthur’s attorneys in Switzerland and Miller’s attorneys in Michigan. Even though this communication was intentionally directed to Michigan, it fails to demonstrate that Winterthur purposefully availed itself of Michigan law. In Calphalon Corp. v. Rowlette, 228 F.3d 718, 722-24 (6th Cir. 2000), we held that a contract was not sufficient to satisfy due process when none of the terms of the contract was to be performed in the forum state; the fact that a contract existed between the parties but in no way implicated action in the forum state was merely fortuitous. See Burger King, 471 U.S. at 478 (“If the question is whether an individual's contract with an out-of-state party alone can automatically establish sufficient minimum contacts in the other party's home forum, we believe the answer clearly is that it cannot.”). Here, the district court has already determined that the Agreement exchanged between the parties created no contractual obligations, and even if it did, they were not to be performed in Michigan. The Agreement simply stated several financial obligations from Miller’s preexisting insurance policy in Switzerland concerning litigation in Switzerland. These obligations existed regardless of where Miller resided, and thus the fact that he was in Michigan when he received the document was merely coincidental. No. 11-1751 Miller v. AXA Winterthur Ins. Page 7