DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S., No. 22-55315 (9th Cir. 2024)
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The plaintiff, a survivor of childhood sex trafficking, filed a class action suit against a group of foreign and domestic corporations, alleging that they violated federal and California laws by distributing videos of her sexual abuse on the internet. The defendants included the owners and operators of two pornography websites based in the Czech Republic. The plaintiff argued that the court had personal jurisdiction over the foreign defendants under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(k)(2), which allows for jurisdiction over a foreign defendant if the claim arises under federal law, the defendant is not subject to jurisdiction in any state's courts, and exercising jurisdiction is consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws. The district court dismissed the case, ruling that it lacked personal jurisdiction over the foreign defendants.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed in part and vacated in part the district court's dismissal. The court found that the plaintiff had established a prima facie case that the Czech website operators had purposefully directed their websites at the United States. The court also held that the plaintiff's claims arose from the defendants' forum-related activities, and that the defendants failed to show that the exercise of personal jurisdiction would be unreasonable. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's dismissal of the action against the Czech defendants for lack of personal jurisdiction.
The court also vacated the district court's dismissal of nine additional foreign defendants. The district court had dismissed these defendants solely on the grounds that there was no personal jurisdiction over the Czech defendants. The appellate court instructed the district court to address on remand whether personal jurisdiction could be asserted against these additional defendants.
Court Description: Personal Jurisdiction. The panel reversed in part and vacated in part the district court’s dismissal, for lack of personal jurisdiction, of claims asserted against 11 foreign-based defendants in a putative class action alleging that defendants violated federal and California law by participating in, or benefitting from, the distribution of videos on the internet that depicted the sexual abuse of Plaintiff and of other victims of childhood-sex- trafficking.
At least four of the videos depicting Plaintiff were uploaded to two pornography websites, which use English as their default language but are respectively operated by two related Czech entities, Defendants WebGroup Czech Republic, a.s. and NKL Associates, s.r.o. Both entities have their principal place of business in the Czech Republic, and neither has offices, conducts business operations, or is registered to do business in the United States. Plaintiff filed this putative class action against WGCZ, NKL, and nine additional foreign defendants (collectively, the “Foreign Defendants”), and five U.S.-based defendants.
Plaintiff contended that personal jurisdiction over the Foreign Defendants is authorized by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(k)(2). Whether personal jurisdiction exists under Rule 4(k)(2) turns on whether the requirements of the Due Process Clause are satisfied. Because Plaintiff did not contend that the Foreign Defendants’ contacts with the United States were sufficient to give rise to general jurisdiction, the sole potential basis for personal jurisdiction was specific jurisdiction over the particular matters at issue in this lawsuit.
The panel held that the district court erred in holding that it lacked specific personal jurisdiction against WGCZ and NKL under the requisite three-part due process test because (1) Plaintiff established a prima facie case that WGCZ and NKL purposefully directed their websites at the United States, (2) her claims seek redress for harms that arise from WGCZ’s and NKL’s forum-related activities in targeting their websites towards the U.S. market, and (3) WGCZ and NKL failed to make a compelling showing that the exercise of personal jurisdiction would be unreasonable.
The panel therefore reversed the district court’s dismissal of the action against WGCZ and NKL for lack of personal jurisdiction. Because the district court dismissed the remaining nine Foreign Defendants solely on the ground that there was no personal jurisdiction over WGCZ and NKL, the panel vacated the dismissal of those additional defendants. The panel instructed the district court to address on remand the remaining unresolved issues concerning whether personal jurisdiction may be asserted against those additional defendants.
Concurring, Judge Lee wrote separately to state that it would have been prudent for the district court to have ordered very limited jurisdictional discovery here, which would have tethered the district court’s analysis more tightly onto this circuit’s personal jurisdiction framework.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on February 14, 2024.
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