21 F.4th 1216
10th Cir.2021Background
- AAC is a Florida LLC that sells vehicle service contracts and conducts national telemarketing, including to Colorado phone numbers.
- Alexander Hood, a Colorado resident, received unwanted prerecorded robocalls on his cell (Vermont area code) offering extended warranties; he traced at least one call to AAC.
- Hood sued under the TCPA and for privacy invasion; several defendants moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction in the District of Colorado.
- The district court found AAC purposefully directed telemarketing at Colorado but dismissed Hood’s claim because the specific call to Hood came to a Vermont number and thus (it held) did not ‘‘arise out of or relate to’’ AAC’s Colorado contacts.
- After the district-court judgment the Supreme Court decided Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Judicial Dist. Court, and the Tenth Circuit reversed the dismissal: under Ford, a strict causal link is not required when the plaintiff is injured by the same type of activity the defendant directed at the forum.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the Tenth Circuit’s conclusion that Colorado has specific jurisdiction over AAC.
Issues
| Issue | Plaintiff's Argument (Hood) | Defendant's Argument (AAC) | Held |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whether Colorado courts have specific jurisdiction over AAC ("arise out of or relate to") | AAC’s telemarketing targets Colorado residents; Hood was injured in Colorado by the same type of solicitation, so the claim relates to AAC’s Colorado contacts | The specific call to Hood came to a Vermont number and thus was not caused by AAC’s Colorado-targeted contacts; relatedness requires causation | Reversed: under Ford ‘‘relate to’’ does not demand strict causation; injury from the same type of activity directed at the forum supports jurisdiction |
| Purposeful direction / purposeful availment | AAC regularly telemarkets to Colorado numbers, so it purposefully directed activities at Colorado residents | Purposeful-direction must be shown by the contacts that produced the claim; the call to Hood (a Vermont-number call) does not establish purposeful direction to Colorado | Held that Hood’s uncontradicted allegations of AAC’s Colorado telemarketing satisfy purposeful direction; Ford contemplates noncausal relatedness to such contacts |
| Fortuity (plaintiff’s relocation and Vermont area code) | Even if Hood retained a Vermont number, it was fortuitous that a Colorado resident had that number; AAC still targeted Colorado residents with identical calls | It was fortuitous that AAC reached a Colorado resident when dialing a Vermont number; that undermines jurisdiction | Court rejects fortuity defense: when defendant regularly targets Colorado with the same conduct, the plaintiff’s phone-number history is a fortuity that does not defeat jurisdiction |
| Fair play & substantial justice (reasonableness) | Colorado has strong interest in redressing injuries to its residents; litigating in Colorado is reasonable | Litigation in Colorado would be burdensome and inconvenient for AAC; forum interests are weak in a national putative class action | Court finds AAC failed to make the ‘‘compelling case’’ required to defeat jurisdiction; fairness factors do not bar Colorado jurisdiction |
Key Cases Cited
- Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Judicial Dist. Court, 141 S. Ct. 1017 (2021) (clarifies that specific-jurisdiction relatedness can exist without strict causation where defendant served a market and plaintiff was injured by the same type of activity)
- World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286 (1980) (manufacturer’s efforts to serve a market in a State can support jurisdiction when the product injures there)
- Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462 (1985) (purposeful availment/purposeful direction and relatedness test for specific jurisdiction)
- Int’l Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310 (1945) (minimum contacts due-process standard)
- Daimler AG v. Bauman, 571 U.S. 117 (2014) (general jurisdiction limited to where defendant is essentially at home)
- Walden v. Fiore, 571 U.S. 277 (2014) (unilateral plaintiff contacts or fortuity not sufficient to create jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant)
- Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, 564 U.S. 915 (2011) (product flow into forum may support specific jurisdiction when relevant to the claim)
- Dudnikov v. Chalk & Vermilion Fine Arts, Inc., 514 F.3d 1063 (10th Cir. 2008) (prima facie standard for personal-jurisdiction factual allegations in Tenth Circuit)