Court Opinion

ID: 9845983
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:32:23.622155+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:30.594114
License: Public Domain

WHITE, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join my colleagues in the conclusion that the district court erred in finding that it could not constitutionally exercise personal jurisdiction over Ferrostaal Germany (Ferrostaal) in relation to SunCoke’s claim for breach of the alleged 2005 agreement. Nationwide, swpra, is properly distinguished on the basis that SunCoke alleges that a new contract was formed as a result of the negotiations in Tennessee and seeks enforcement of that contract. Cf. Minn. Mining & Mfg. Co. v. Nippon Carbide Indus. Co., 63 F.3d 694, 698 (8th Cir.1995).
I join parts I and II of Judge Merritt’s opinion. However, I agree with Judge Rogers that personal jurisdiction must be proper as to each claim, and that the two contract claims do not share a common nucleus of facts. Thus, personal jurisdiction as to the claim based on the 2001 confidentiality agreement must be established in its own right. Because I conclude that SunCoke has established the requisite minimum contacts as to this claim as well, I concur in the judgment that Ferrostaal is subject to personal juris*218diction as to SunCoke’s claim for breach of the 2001 agreement.
SunCoke, a corporation with its principal place of business in Knoxville, Tennessee (Comply 4), entered into a confidentiality agreement with Ferrostaal on April 2, 2001, under which it would disclose its confidential, proprietary, or otherwise nonpublic information to Ferrostaal so that Ferrostaal could “perform certain services on behalf of SunCoke Company and its affiliates ... related to the development and installation of a heat recovery coke plant and related cogeneration facility in Brazil pursuant to a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ [MOU] to be entered into” between SunCoke and Ferrostaal. J.A. 23. The confidentiality agreement was specifically and solely addressed to the protection, limited use, and return of Sun-Coke’s and its affiliates’ confidential information and materials. Although related to the underlying MOU and incorporated into the MOU by reference (J.A. 67), the confidentiality agreement is a separate contract in its own right, and is the agreement SunCoke seeks to compel Ferrostaal to specifically perform.
While the MOU itself has little connection to Tennessee, the confidentiality agreement has a significant connection to Tennessee. The subject of the confidentiality agreement was not a contract to be performed in Brazil, but rather confidential information and materials originating mainly in Tennessee and belonging to a business with its principal offices in Tennessee. By the terms of the confidentiality agreement, which was written on Sun-Coke’s Tennessee letterhead, Ferrostaal acknowledged that “the Confidential Information embodies substantial and highly valuable know[-]how that is proprietary to [SunCoke]” and that SunCoke “shall be irreparably harmed if any of the provisions of the Agreement are breached.” J.A. 25 (Agreement ¶ 6). Importantly, the agreement provided that Ferrostaal “will promptly return all Confidential Information and other materials furnished by [SunCoke] to [defendant] (including copies thereof regardless of format) upon the occurrence of’ certain prescribed events, including “the termination of the Memorandum of Understanding or any agreements entered into by such parties or their affiliates pursuant to such Memorandum of Understanding” or “the conclusion of the Project.” J.A. 24-25 (Agreement ¶ 4). Thus, final performance of the contract required that the materials be returned to SunCoke. Indeed, the record reflects that when Ferrostaal eventually returned certain confidential materials and drawings — doing so explicitly pursuant to the 2001 confidentiality agreement — it returned them by courier to SunCoke in Tennessee. See J.A. 88.
On its own, the existence of a contract would be insufficient to confer personal jurisdiction. See Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 478, 105 S.Ct. 2174, 85 L.Ed.2d 528 (1985). Rather, “pri- or negotiations and contemplated future consequences, along with the terms of the contract and the parties’ actual course of dealing,” are to be considered to determine whether “the defendant purposefully established minimum contacts within the forum.” Id. at 479, 105 S.Ct. 2174. In executing the confidentiality agreement, the parties contemplated a continuing relationship. By the very terms of the agreement, defendant knew it was contracting with a company in Tennessee, understood the value of the confidential information to this Tennessee company, and anticipated a course of dealing that would involve accessing information located in Tennessee, protecting that information for the benefit of a Tennessee company, and returning the information to Tennessee. The “contemplated future consequences” of a failure to protect or return that information *219were expressly stated — irreparable injury to the Tennessee company and the possible commencement of an equitable action in a court of competent jurisdiction.
Moreover, the confidentiality agreement enabled an ongoing relationship between the parties. See CompuServe, Inc. v. Patterson, 89 F.3d 1257, 1265 (6th Cir.1996) (distinguishing between “a relationship intended to be ongoing in nature” and a “one-shot affair”). With this agreement in place, SunCoke provided and facilitated Ferrostaal’s access to proprietary information and materials through computer access to SunCoke’s Tennessee-maintained website1 and visits to its United States facilities. Although such visits did not occur in Tennessee, Ferrostaal’s arrangements for its United States visits were made through SunCoke’s Tennessee office. And although Ferrostaal argues that any breach of the confidentiality agreement would have occurred outside Tennessee because any failure to return the information occurred outside Tennessee, and that any misuse or misappropriation occurred outside Tennessee, the gravamen of Sun-Coke’s complaint is the failure to return the confidential materials to Tennessee as contemplated by the confidentiality agreement.
The facts and circumstances, in the aggregate, establish sufficient minimum contacts with Tennessee to support the exercise of personal jurisdiction over a claim for equitable relief under the confidentiality agreement. Traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice would not be offended by such an exercise. See Floratine Prods. Group, Inc. v. Brawley, 282 F.Supp.2d 798, 801 (W.D.Tenn.2003) (“Tennessee has a substantial interest in protecting the contracts upon which its citizens rely, especially when those contracts create continuing relationships.”) (citing J.I. Case Corp. v. Williams, 832 S.W.2d 530, 533 (Tenn.1992)); see also Burger King, 471 U.S. at 475-76, 105 S.Ct. 2174 (observing that “where the defendant deliberately ... has created continuing obligations between himself and residents of the forum, he manifestly has availed himself of the privilege of conducting business there”) (citation and quotation marks omitted).
For these reasons, I conclude that Sun-Coke has established the requisite minimum contacts to support the constitutional exercise of personal jurisdiction over Ferrostaal as to each of SunCoke’s two claims for equitable relief.

. Given that the website was maintained at SunCoke’s Tennessee office, I do not find it significant that the server was located in Houston, Texas.