Young v. New Haven AdvocateYoung v. New Haven Advocate
Before MICHAEL and GREGORY, Circuit Judges, and Bobby R. BALDOCK, Senior Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, sitting by designation.
Reversed by published opinion. Judge MICHAEL wrote the opinion, in which Judge GREGORY and Senior Judge BALDOCK joined.
OPINION
MICHAEL, Circuit Judge.
The question in this appeal is whether two Connecticut newspapers and certain of their staff (sometimes, the “newspaper defendants“) subjected themselves to personal jurisdiction in Virginia by posting on the Internet news articles that, in the context of discussing the State of Connecticut‘s policy of housing its prisoners in Virginia institutions, allegedly defamed the warden of a Virginia prison. Our recent decision in ALS Scan, Inc. v. Digital Service Consultants, Inc., 293 F.3d 707 (4th Cir.2002), supplies the standard for determining a court‘s authority to exercise personal jurisdiction over an out-of-state person who places information on the Internet. Applying that standard, we hold that a court in Virginia cannot constitutionally exercise jurisdiction over the Connecticut-based newspaper defendants because they did not manifest an intent to aim their websites or the posted articles at a Virginia audience. Accordingly, we reverse the district court‘s order denying the defendants’ motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction.
I.
Connecticut newspapers, including defendants the New Haven Advocate (the Advocate) and the Hartford Courant (the Courant), began reporting on the controversy. On March 30, 2000, the Advocate published a news article, written by one of its reporters, defendant Camille Jackson, about the transfer of Connecticut inmates to Wallens Ridge. The article discussed the allegedly harsh conditions at the Virginia prison and pointed out that the long trip to southwestern Virginia made visits by prisoners’ families difficult or impossible. In the middle of her lengthy article, Jackson mentioned a class action that inmates transferred from Connecticut had filed against Warden Young and the Connecticut Commissioner of Corrections. The inmates alleged a lack of proper hygiene and medical care and the denial of religious privileges at Wallens Ridge. Finally, a paragraph at the end of the article reported that a Connecticut state senator had expressed concern about the presence of Confederate Civil War memorabilia in Warden Young‘s office. At about the same time the Courant published three columns, written by defendant-reporter Amy Pagnozzi, questioning the practice of relocating Connecticut inmates to Virginia prisons. The columns reported on letters written home by inmates who alleged cruelty by prison guards. In one column Pagnozzi called Wallens Ridge a “cut-rate gulag.” Warden Young was not mentioned in any of the Pagnozzi columns.
On May 12, 2000, Warden Young sued the two newspapers, their editors (Gail Thompson and Brian Toolan), and the two reporters for libel in a diversity action filed in the Western District of Virginia. He claimed that the newspapers’ articles imply that he “is a racist who advocates racism” and that he “encourages abuse of inmates by the guards” at Wallens Ridge. Young alleged that the newspapers circulated the allegedly defamatory articles throughout the world by posting them on their Internet websites.
The newspaper defendants filed motions to dismiss the complaint under
In responding to the declarations of the editors and reporters, Warden Young pointed out that the newspapers posted the allegedly defamatory articles on Internet websites that were accessible to Virginia residents. In addition, Young provided copies of assorted print-outs from the newspapers’ websites. For the Advocate, Young submitted eleven pages from newhavenadvocate.com and newmassmedia.com for January 26, 2001. The two pages from newhavenadvocate.com are the Advocate‘s homepage, which includes links to articles about the “Best of New Haven” and New Haven‘s park police. The nine pages from newmassmedia.com, a website maintained by the publishers of the Advocate, consist of classified advertising from that week‘s newspapers and instructions on how to submit a classified ad. The listings include advertisements for real estate rentals in New Haven and Guilford, Connecticut, for roommates wanted and tattoo services offered in Hamden, Connecticut, and for a bassist needed by a band in West Haven, Connecticut. For the Courant, Young provided nine pages from hartfordcourant.com and ctnow.com for January 26, 2001. The hartfordcourant.com homepage characterizes the website as a “source of news and entertainment in and about Connecticut.” A page soliciting advertising in the Courant refers to “exposure for your message in this market” in the “best medium in the state to deliver your advertising message.” The pages from ctnow.com, a website produced by the Courant, provide news stories from that day‘s edition of the Courant, weather reports for Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut, and links to sites for the University of Connecticut and Connecticut state government. The website promotes its online advertising as a “source for jobs in Connecticut.” The website printouts provided for January 26, 2001, do not have any content with a connection to readers in Virginia.
The district court denied the newspaper defendants’ motions to dismiss, concluding that it could exercise personal jurisdiction over them under Virginia‘s long-arm statute,
A.
A federal court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a defendant in the manner provided by state law. See ESAB Group, Inc. v. Centricut, Inc., 126 F.3d 617, 622 (4th Cir.1997);
B.
We turn to whether the district court can exercise specific jurisdiction over the newspaper defendants, namely, the two newspapers, the two editors, and the two reporters. To begin with, we can put aside the few Virginia contacts that are not Internet based because Warden Young does not rely on them. Thus, Young does not claim that the reporters’ few telephone calls into Virginia or the Courant‘s eight Virginia subscribers are sufficient to establish personal jurisdiction over those defendants. Nor did the district court rely on these traditional contacts.
Warden Young argues that the district court has specific personal jurisdiction over the newspaper defendants (hereafter, the “newspapers“) because of the following contacts between them and Virginia: (1) the newspapers, knowing that Young was a Virginia resident, intentionally discussed and defamed him in their articles, (2) the newspapers posted the articles on their websites, which were accessible in Virginia, and (3) the primary effects of the defamatory statements on Young‘s reputation were felt in Virginia. Young emphasizes that he is not arguing that jurisdiction is proper in any location where defamatory Internet content can be accessed, which would be anywhere in the world. Rather, Young argues that personal jurisdiction is proper in Virginia because the newspapers understood that their defamatory articles, which were available to Virginia residents on the Internet, would expose Young to public hatred, contempt, and ridicule in Virginia, where he lived and worked. As the district court put it, “[t]he defendants were all well aware of the fact that the plaintiff was employed as a warden within the Virginia correctional system and resided
Young frames his argument in a way that makes one thing clear: if the newspapers’ contacts with Virginia were sufficient to establish personal jurisdiction, those contacts arose solely from the newspapers’ Internet-based activities. Recently, in ALS Scan we discussed the challenges presented in applying traditional jurisdictional principles to decide when “an out-of-state citizen, through electronic contacts, has conceptually `entered’ the State via the Internet for jurisdictional purposes.” ALS Scan, 293 F.3d at 713. There, we held that “specific jurisdiction in the Internet context may be based only on an out-of-state person‘s Internet activity directed at [the forum state] and causing injury that gives rise to a potential claim cognizable in [that state].” Id. at 714. We noted that this standard for determining specific jurisdiction based on Internet contacts is consistent with the one used by the Supreme Court in Calder v. Jones, 465 U.S. 783 (1984). ALS Scan, 293 F.3d at 714. Calder, though not an Internet case, has particular relevance here because it deals with personal jurisdiction in the context of a libel suit. In Calder a California actress brought suit there against, among others, two Floridians, a reporter and an editor who wrote and edited in Florida a National Enquirer article claiming that the actress had a problem with alcohol. The Supreme Court held that California had jurisdiction over the Florida residents because “California [was] the focal point both of the story and of the harm suffered.” Calder, 465 U.S. at 789. The writers’ “actions were expressly aimed at California,” the Court said, “[a]nd they knew that the brunt of [the potentially devastating] injury would be felt by [the actress] in the State in which she lives and works and in which the National Enquirer has its largest circulation,” 600,000 copies. Id. at 789-90.
Warden Young argues that Calder requires a finding of jurisdiction in this case simply because the newspapers posted articles on their Internet websites that discussed the warden and his Virginia prison, and he would feel the effects of any libel in Virginia, where he lives and works. Calder does not sweep that broadly, as we have recognized. For example, in ESAB Group, Inc. v. Centricut, Inc., 126 F.3d 617, 625-26 (4th Cir.1997), we emphasized how important it is in light of Calder to look at whether the defendant has expressly aimed or directed its conduct toward the forum state. We said that “[a]lthough the place that the plaintiff feels the alleged injury is plainly relevant to the [jurisdictional] inquiry, it must ultimately be accompanied by the defendant‘s own [sufficient minimum] contacts with the state if jurisdiction ... is to be upheld.” Id. at 626. We thus had no trouble in concluding in ALS Scan that application of Calder in the Internet context requires proof that the out-of-state defendant‘s Internet activity is expressly targeted at or directed to the forum state. ALS Scan, 293 F.3d at 714. In ALS Scan we went on to adapt the traditional standard (set out in part II.A., supra) for establishing specific jurisdiction so that it makes sense in the Internet context. We “conclude[d] that a State may, consistent with due process, exercise judicial power over a person outside of the State when that person (1) directs electronic activity into the State, (2) with the manifested intent of engaging in business or other interactions within the State, and (3) that activity creates, in a person within the State, a potential cause of action cognizable in the State‘s courts.” Id. at 714.
When the Internet activity is, as here, the posting of news articles on a website, the ALS Scan test works more smoothly
We therefore turn to the pages from the newspapers’ websites that Warden Young placed in the record, and we examine their general thrust and content. The overall content of both websites is decidedly local, and neither newspaper‘s website contains advertisements aimed at a Virginia audience. For example, the website that distributes the Courant, ctnow.com, provides access to local (Connecticut) weather and traffic information and links to websites for the University of Connecticut and Connecticut state government. The Advocate‘s website features stories focusing on New Haven, such as one entitled “The Best of New Haven.” In sum, it appears that these newspapers maintain their websites to serve local readers in Connecticut, to expand the reach of their papers within their local markets, and to provide their local markets with a place for classified ads. The websites are not designed to attract or serve a Virginia audience.
We also examine the specific articles Young complains about to determine whether they were posted on the Internet with the intent to target a Virginia audience. The articles included discussions about the allegedly harsh conditions at the Wallens Ridge prison, where Young was warden. One article mentioned Young by name and quoted a Connecticut state senator who reported that Young had Confederate Civil War memorabilia in his office. The focus of the articles, however, was the Connecticut prisoner transfer policy and its impact on the transferred prisoners and their families back home in Connecticut. The articles reported on and encouraged a public debate in Connecticut about whether the transfer policy was sound or practical for that state and its citizens. Connecticut, not Virginia, was the focal point of the articles. Cf. Griffis v. Luban, 646 N.W.2d 527, 536 (Minn.2002) (“The mere fact that [the defendant, who posted allegedly defamatory statements about the plaintiff on the Internet] knew that [the plaintiff] resided and worked in Alabama is not sufficient to extend personal jurisdiction over [the defendant] in Alabama, because that knowledge does not demonstrate targeting of Alabama as the focal point of the ... statements.“).
We reverse the order of the district court denying the motions to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction made by the New Haven Advocate, Gail Thompson (its editor), and Camille Jackson (its reporter) and by the Hartford Courant, Brian Toolan (its editor), and Amy Pagnozzi (its reporter).
REVERSED.