With the growth of the Internet, courts have faced the challenge of applying long-standing principles of personal jurisdiction to a borderless communication medium that enables businesses and individuals all over the world to instantaneously interact across state boundaries.
Where a civil action has been brought based on a defendant's Internet activities, courts have generally declined to assert personal jurisdiction solely on the basis of web advertising.
[2] In evaluating the assertion of personal jurisdiction in cases involving the Internet, courts have applied both traditional tests and standards customized to the online world.
Following International Shoe, courts have generally applied a three-part test in evaluating minimum contacts sufficient for jurisdiction: (1) The nonresident defendant must do some act or consummate some transaction with the forum or perform some act by which he purposefully avails himself of the privilege of conducting activities in the forum, thereby invoking the benefits and protections[;] (2) the claim must be one which arises out of or results from the defendant's forum-related activities[; and] (3) exercise of jurisdiction must be reasonable.
[6]Courts may also apply the "effects" test from Calder v. Jones, 465 U.S. 783 (1984), in cases with insufficient interactivity or minimum contacts, but where an action is targeted at a particular forum.
[7] In Calder, a California resident in the entertainment business sued the National Enquirer, located in Florida, for libel based on an allegedly defamatory article published by the magazine.
While the article was written and edited in Florida, the Court found that personal jurisdiction was properly established in California because of the effects of the defendants' conduct in that state.
"[9] The "sliding scale" or "Zippo" test has been generally accepted as the standard in federal courts in deciding personal jurisdiction in Internet cases.
The Zippo test has been cited by many courts as a standard of analysis for personal jurisdiction with regard to the Internet, but it has also undergone criticism.
This launched a separate line of reasoning with regard to jurisdiction in Internet cases focused on the specific characteristics of the web, and was cited by Hearst Corp. v. Goldberger.
The court held that this standard was met by Instruction Set's Internet presence, which it found to be at least as much of a case of solicitation as advertising through hard copy mailers and catalogs.
The court also found there to be sufficient minimum contacts because Instruction Set should have realized that their nationally available phone number and Internet site could reach potential customers in Connecticut.
However, this is limited to people who should have reasonably expected the act to have consequences in the state, and who derive substantial revenue from interstate commerce, something the court held was not shown here.
The Pennsylvania long-arm statute allowed the court to exercise personal jurisdiction for claims arising out of contracts to supply services in the state.
[17] Plaintiff Mink discussed the possibility of marketing a software product he recently submitted a patent application for with a man named Stark.
Mink brought suit in Texas to claim damages against defendants for conspiring to duplicate his software in violation of his patent-pending rights.
Plaintiff filed a motion for reconsideration, alleging that the defendant's website fulfilled the minimum contacts requirement for personal jurisdiction.
It held that the defendants' statements were published with the knowledge or purpose of causing harm to the plaintiff in the forum state of New Jersey, and that this satisfied the "minimum contacts" requirement for proper jurisdiction.
Holding: Personal jurisdiction for claims regarding a website require application of the Calder test to establish "minimum contacts" as defined by Int'l Shoe.
Inc. v. La Ligue Contre Le Racisme et l'antisemitisme (LICRA), the Ninth Circuit applied the Calder test to find that a California court could properly establish specific personal jurisdiction in a declaratory judgment action against two French civil rights organizations suing Yahoo!
in two interim orders to take "all necessary measures to dissuade and render impossible" access within France to sites displaying Nazi paraphernalia or other anti-Semitic content, and directed Yahoo!
In reviewing Yahoo's claim for declaratory relief, the Court applied a three-part version of the Calder test to determine if the effects of LICRA's action were sufficiently directed at California to establish personal jurisdiction, including whether the defendant: 1. committed an intentional act; 2. expressly aimed at the forum state, and 3. causing harm that the defendant knows is likely to be suffered in the forum state.
to perform significant acts in California as the servers supporting yahoo.com, which would have to be modified for compliance, were located in that state, thus fulfilling the first two prongs of the test.
Holding: Personal jurisdiction under the Calder test can be established where a defendant's foreign court orders require modifying data located on servers in the forum state and the threat of financial penalty for not performing the modifications constitutes harm.
[8] The Tenth Circuit overturned a dismissal granted by the District Court of Colorado due to lack of personal jurisdiction in a case involving a copyright dispute over an eBay auction.
The court decided that there existed specific jurisdiction over the defendants due to their interactions with the plaintiffs via the Internet services operated by eBay.
The District Court granted a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and the Ninth Circuit affirmed this decision.
The court applied the minimum contacts rule outlined by Int'l Shoe as well as the purposeful availment principle from Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, which aligns with the Calder test.
The court thus ruled that this qualified as a purposeful availment of the privileges of the forum state on the part of the defendants, and that jurisdiction was proper.
Holding: Personal jurisdiction is established through "minimum contacts" and purposeful availment by appearing (even through an agent) in the forum state to pick up an item sold through the Internet.