Perdue Foods LLC v. BRF S.A., No. 14-2120 (4th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CasePerdue appealed the district court's dismissal of its breach of contract action against BRF for lack of personal jurisdiction. The court concluded that Perdue has alleged few facts to satisfy its prima facie burden in support of personal jurisdiction. In this case, the only fact that it alleges that indisputably weighs in favor of jurisdiction is that the agreement at issue includes a Maryland choice-of-law clause. On the contrary, many undisputed facts indicate that a Maryland court does not have personal jurisdiction over BRF: the company employs no Maryland officers or agents and owns no property in the state; BRF did not initiate the negotiations that led to the agreement; no BRF employee traveled to Maryland in connection with the agreement; and BRF conducts no business in Maryland. In this case, BRF’s alleged breach of the agreement occurred not in Maryland, but in foreign countries. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
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