Court Opinion

ID: 9498609
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:22:12.981593+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:56.262273
License: Public Domain

O’SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge,
with whom FERGUSON and TASHIMA, Circuit Judges, join, concurring only in the judgment:
Our requirement that a defendant have “purposefully availed” himself of the protections and benefits of the forum state, or have “purposefully directed” his activities into the forum state, must be read in light of the Supreme Court’s admonition in Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U.S. 457, 61 S.Ct. 339, 85 L.Ed. 278 (1940), that the exercise of personal jurisdiction must comport with “traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.” Id. at 463, 61 S.Ct. 339. Because I cannot agree that California’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over La Ligue Contre Le Racisme et L’Antisemitisme (“LICRA”) and L’Union des Etudiants Juifs de France (“UEJF”) comports with those basic principles, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s opinion while concurring in its conclusion that Yahool’s suit must be dismissed. For similar reasons, I concur in Judge Tashima’s concurrence and in Part I of Judge Ferguson’s concurrence.
I
A State’s jurisdiction is defined not by force or influence but by physical territory and its judicial power traditionally extended over only those persons and property within its borders. See Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714, 720-22, 24 L.Ed. 565 (1878). The idea of “minimum contacts” developed as a surrogate for actual presence in a State but did not alter the essentially territorial nature of jurisdiction. The question in every personal jurisdiction case, then, is whether an individual’s contacts with the forum State are so substantial that they render the extension of sovereign power *1229just, notwithstanding his lack of physical presence there.
A
The personal jurisdiction requirement is not merely a rule of civil procedure; it is a constitutional constraint on the powers of a State, as exercised by its courts, in favor of the due process rights of the individual. See Omni Capital Int’l v. Rudolf Wolff & Co., 484 U.S. 97, 104, 108 S.Ct. 404, 98 L.Ed.2d 415 (1987) (“The requirement that a court have personal jurisdiction flows not from [Article] III, but from the Due Process Clause. It represents a restriction on judicial power not as a matter of sovereignty, but as a matter of individual liberty.”). Grounded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of the processes necessary to ensure basic fairness in the application of the law, the requirement that an individual have “certain minimum contacts” with the relevant forum “such that the maintenance of the suit does not offend ‘traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice,’ ” International Shoe v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 316, 66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945) (quoting Milliken, 311 U.S. at 463, 61 S.Ct. 339), protects him from the unpredictable and burdensome exercise of authority by foreign courts. It follows from this that the rights and interests of Yahoo! and the interests of the State of California, if not irrelevant to the inquiry, are clearly subordinate to the rights of LICRA and UEJF, the parties against whom jurisdiction is asserted and whose rights are protected by the Due Process Clause.
The Supreme Court has advised that the constitutional touchstone remains whether the defendant purposefully established “minimum contacts” in the forum State. Although it has been argued that foreseeability of causing injury in another State should be sufficient to establish such contacts there when policy considerations so require, the Court has consistently held that this kind of foreseeability is not a “sufficient benchmark” for exercising personal jurisdiction. Instead, the foreseeability that is critical to due process analysis is that the defendant’s conduct and connection with the forum State are such that he should reasonably anticipate being haled into court there.
Burger King v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 474, 105 S.Ct. 2174, 85 L.Ed.2d 528 (1985) (emphases added). By requiring that individuals have “fair warning that a particular activity may subject [them] to the jurisdiction of a foreign sovereign,” Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U.S. 186, 218, 97 S.Ct. 2569, 53 L.Ed.2d 683 (1977) (STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment), the Due Process Clause “gives a degree of predictability to the legal system that allows potential defendants to structure their primary conduct with some minimum assurance as to where that conduct will and will not render them liable to suit.” World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286, 297, 100 S.Ct. 559, 62 L.Ed.2d 490 (1980).
B
The Supreme Court has never approved such a radical extension of personal jurisdiction as would sanction the majority’s holding that, by litigating a bona fide claim in a foreign court and receiving a favorable judgment, a foreign party automatically assents to being haled into court in the other litigant’s home forum. Such a result cannot be reconciled with the “constitutional touchstone” of foreseeability: that the defendant “should reasonably anticipate being haled into court” in the forum. Burger King, 471 U.S. at 474, 105 S.Ct. 2174.
In Calder v. Jones, 465 U.S. 783, 104 S.Ct. 1482, 79 L.Ed.2d 804 (1984), the defendants should reasonably have expected that, by circulating a libelous story in Cali*1230fornia about a California celebrity, they would be haled into court in California to answer for their tortious behavior. And in Burger King, because the defendants’ business ties with the State of Florida were “shielded by the ‘benefits and protections’ ” of Florida’s laws, it was “presumptively not unreasonable to require [them] to submit to the burdens of litigation [there] as well.” 471 U.S. at 543, 105 S.Ct. 2218. These cases stake out the limits of personal jurisdiction as approved by the Supreme Court.
LICRA’s and UEJF’s actions lie beyond that limit. Neither party has ever carried on business or any other activity through which they have availed themselves of the benefits and protections of California’s laws,1 nor should either party have reasonably anticipated that it would be haled into court in California to answer for the legitimate exercise of its rights in France.
II
This case was reheard en banc primarily for the purpose of answering the question of whether the underlying action in a non-contract case must be tortious or otherwise wrongful to justify the exercise of personal jurisdiction, or whether the “express aiming” of any action, regardless of culpability, will suffice.2 Although the resolution of that question does not affect my conclusion that California cannot exercise personal jurisdiction over LICRA or UEJF, I respectfully disagree with the majority’s interpretation of Calder on this point.
A
Under the majority’s reading of Calder, acts giving rise to personal jurisdiction in a non-contract case need not be wrongful. Maj. op. at 1208 (“[W]e do not read Calder necessarily to require in purposeful direction cases that all (or even any) jurisdictionally relevant effects have been caused by wrongful acts.”). That conclusion is undermined by the language of Calder itself and requires the majority to divorce that case’s holding from its fact— always a dubious exercise. In Calder, the Supreme Court affirmed a decision that had “concluded that a valid basis for jurisdiction existed on the theory that petitioners intended to, and did, cause tortious injury to respondent in California.” Calder, 104 S.Ct. at 1485 (emphasis added). The Court itself held that “[i]n this case, petitioners are primary participants in an alleged wrongdoing intentionally directed at a California resident, and jurisdiction is proper on that basis.” Id. at 1487 (emphasis added). The wrongfulness of the defendants’ acts was, therefore, a key element in the jurisdictional calculus, possibly because a person who has committed a wrongful act should expect to be haled into court by his victim in the victim’s home State. Although the Court might have reached the same result if the act in question had not been wrongful — as the majori*1231ty apparently presumes it would — it is reckless of us to proceed on the basis of such speculation beyond what is currently the farthest reach of personal jurisdiction approved by the Court.
B
The majority’s jurisdictional legerdemain is nimble but, like any trick, does not stand up to close scrutiny. It begins innocuously enough by noting that the traditional analysis of minimum contacts depends on whether the disputed act sounds in tort or in contract. In tort cases, “we typically inquire whether a defendant ‘purposefully direet[s] his activities’ at the forum state,” maj. op. at 1206. And in commercial and contract cases, “we typically inquire whether a defendant ‘purposefully avails itself [sic] of the privilege of conducting activities’ or ‘consummate[s][a] transaction’ in the forum.” Id. and do not require that the defendants actions be wrongful. However, that traditional distinction is abruptly jettisoned when the majority next asserts that “in any personal jurisdiction case we must evaluate all of a defendant’s contacts with the forum state, whether or not those contacts involve wrongful activity by the defendant.” Id. at 1207 (emphases added).
The majority’s statement is, quite literally, unprecedented. With a stroke of its pen, the majority extends the analysis previously applied only to commercial and contract cases to all assertions of personal jurisdiction. Tellingly, the only cases that the majority musters in support of its novel assertion are commercial or contract-related “purposeful availment” cases. In Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298, 112 S.Ct. 1904, 119 L.Ed.2d 91 (1992), the Supreme Court held that when an out-of-state mail order company “purposefully avails itself of the benefits of an economic market in the forum State, it may subject itself to the State’s in personam jurisdiction even if it has no physical presence in the State.” 504 U.S. at 302, 112 S.Ct. 1904. And, in Burger King, the Court held that jurisdiction was proper on the grounds that defendants’ business ties with the State of Florida were “shielded by the ‘benefits and protections’ ” of Florida’s laws. 471 U.S. at 543, 105 S.Ct. 2218. In sharp contrast, every “purposeful direction” case that the majority cites in its opinion involved tortious or otherwise wrongful acts by the defendants.
Given our long line of precedent applying the “purposeful availment” test only in contract and commercial cases, and the majority’s concession that this case should be analyzed under Calder’s “purposeful direction” test, see maj. op. at 1208, the majority’s conflation of the elements of these two tests is an unseemly act of judicial slight of hand. LICRA and UEJF are, indisputably, non-commercial actors who have never purposefully availed themselves of the benefits or protections of California’s laws. Therefore, neither Colder nor any other Supreme Court precedent justifies California’s assertion of personal jurisdiction over them.
Ill
LICRA’s and UEJF’s actions and contacts with the State of California were, at most, incidental to the legitimate exercise of their rights under French law. They should not have reasonably anticipated being haled into court in California to answer for their prosecution of a lawsuit in France. Because California’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over them on that basis would violate traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice and, therefore, the procedural guarantees of the Due Process Clause, I would remand the case with instructions to dismiss for want of personal jurisdiction and not reach the issue of ripeness.
*1232Thus, while I must dissent from its rationale, I concur in the majority’s conclusion that the district court’s opinion must be reversed.

. I agree with the majority that the mailing in good faith of cease and desist letters and the use of the United States Marshal’s Office to effect service of process of documents related to the French legal proceedings are not sufficient bases for jurisdiction. Maj. op. at 1208-1209.

. Although the fact is ignored by the majority, this question was settled law in bur circuit prior this appeal being reheard en banc. In Bancroft & Masters, Inc. v. Augusta Nat’l Inc., 223 F.3d 1082, 1086 (9th Cir.2000), the panel made it clear that its decision relied on the assumption that the defendant had engaged in tortious conduct. Judge Sneed, writing for a majority of the panel, further held that ”[j]urisdiction in California would be ripe for challenge if following the development of trial it "should appear that ANI acted reasonably and in good faith to protect its trademark against an infringer.” Id. at 1089 (Sneed, J., concurring).