Carmouche v. Tamborlee Mgmt., Inc.

• Citation: 789 F.3d 1201
• Decision Date: 15 June 2015
• Docket Number: No. 14–14325.,14–14325.
• Parties: Tawana CARMOUCHE, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. TAMBORLEE MANAGEMENT, INC., d.b.a. Belize Paradise Ltd., Defendant–Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit)

789 F.3d 1201

Tawana CARMOUCHE, Plaintiff–Appellant
v.
TAMBORLEE MANAGEMENT, INC., d.b.a. Belize Paradise Ltd., Defendant–Appellee.

No. 14–14325.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

June 15, 2015.

789 F.3d 1202

David Christopher Whitmore, Scheuermann & Jones, LLC, New Orleans, LA, Alvin E. Entin, Entin & Della Fera, PA, Fort Lauderdale, FL, for Plaintiff–Appellant.

Michael John Dono, Carlos Javier Chardon, Hamilton Miller & Birthisel, LLP, Miami, FL, for Defendant–Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. D.C. Docket No. 0:13–cv–62584–WPD.

Before WILLIAM PRYOR, JULIE CARNES, and SILER,^* Circuit Judges.

Opinion

WILLIAM PRYOR, Circuit Judge:

This appeal requires us to decide whether the district court had general personal jurisdiction over Tamborlee Management, Inc., a Panama corporation that provides shore excursions for tourists in Belize. After Tawana Carmouche was injured during a shore excursion operated by Tamborlee in Belize, she sued Tamborlee for negligence in the Southern District of Florida. Tamborlee moved to dismiss Carmouche's complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction, and the district court granted the motion after allowing the parties to take jurisdictional discovery. Because Tamborlee's activities in Florida are not “so ‘continuous and systematic’ as to render [it] essentially at home” there, Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, 564 U.S. ––––, 131 S.Ct. 2846, 2851, 180 L.Ed.2d 796 (2011) (quoting Int'l Shoe Co. v. State of Wash., Office of Unemployment Comp. & Placement, 326 U.S. 310, 317, 66 S.Ct. 154, 159, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945) ), we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

In November 2012, Carmouche, a passenger on a cruise operated by Carnival Corporation, was injured during a shore excursion operated by Tamborlee in Belize. Carmouche sued Carnival and Tamborlee for negligence in the Southern District of Florida. Tamborlee moved to dismiss Carmouche's complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction, and the district court granted Carmouche leave to take jurisdictional discovery. After jurisdictional discovery, Tamborlee renewed its motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction.

Tamborlee is a corporation registered in Panama that provides shore excursions for

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tourists in Belize. Tamborlee has never operated a shore excursion in Florida, advertised to potential customers in Florida, or been incorporated or licensed to do business in Florida. Tamborlee's connections with Florida include insurance policies with several Florida companies, a bank account with Citibank that is handled by a department in Miami, and membership in the Florida Caribbean Cruise Association, a non-profit trade organization.

In 2005, Tamborlee entered into an agreement with Carnival Corporation to provide shore excursions for Carnival passengers in Belize. The initial contract between Tamborlee and Carnival provided that “[Tamborlee] consents to the personal jurisdiction over it and to the venue of the courts serving the Southern District of Florida in the event of any lawsuit to which CARNIVAL is a party and which is related to, in connection with, arising from or involving the Shore Excursion or the terms of this Agreement.” The contract also listed a post-office box in Key West, Florida, as Tamborlee's “principal place of business.” In December 2005, Tamborlee and Carnival executed a contract with the same terms as the initial contract, including the same forum-selection clause and the same Key West post-office box listed as Tamborlee's “principal place of business.”

Also in 2005, Tamborlee filed a UCC financing statement with the Florida Secretary of State. The statement concerned the financing of a vessel named “Belize Dream.” One section of the statement lists a Belize mailing address for Tamborlee, but another section lists a Key West address next to Tamborlee's name. The Key West address listed on the financing statement is different from the Key West post-office box listed in the Carnival contracts.

Tamborlee filed a declaration of its co-founder, William Mackenzie, that the inclusion of the Key West post-office box in the contracts with Carnival was “entirely in error,” that the address “has never belonged to or even been associated with Tamborlee, its owners, officers, representatives, agents or employees,” that “Tamborlee has never used this P.O. Box for any purpose,” and that the address “belonged to an entity which was owned or affiliated with” Peter Norquoy, an initial investor in Tamborlee. Mackenzie further asserted that the different Key West address listed in the 2005 financing statement never belonged to Tamborlee. Tamborlee also submitted insurance contracts, contracts with other cruise lines, and e-mails between employees of Tamborlee and Carnival that listed Panama and Belize addresses for Tamborlee.

The district court granted Tamborlee's motion to dismiss. Although “Tamborlee ... presented evidence that the [Key West post-office box] was placed in the [Carnival] agreement in error,” the district court concluded that even if it “were to accept that the Key West post[-]office box was a Tamborlee mailing address, this is insufficient support for personal jurisdiction.”

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review de novo the decision of a district court to dismiss a complaint for lack of personal...