Luv N' Care, Ltd. v. Insta-Mix, Inc.

Citation438 F.3d 465
Decision Date25 January 2006
Docket NumberNo. 04-31171.,04-31171.
PartiesLUV N' CARE, LTD., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. INSTA-MIX, INC.; Umix, Inc.; Umix-products, Inc.; Umix Sports, Inc.; Umixpro; and Umixbaby, Defendants-Appellees.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)

Morris E. Cohen (argued), Brooklyn, NY, Joseph Dowling Guerriero, Guerriero & Guerriero, Monroe, LA, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Keith Francis Cross (argued), Cross & Bennett, Colorado Springs, CO, Thomas M. Hayes, III, Hayes, Harkey, Smith & Cascio, Monroe, LA, for Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

Before GARWOOD, SMITH and DEMOSS, Circuit Judges.

JERRY E. SMITH, Circuit Judge:

Luv n' care, Ltd. ("Luv n' care"), a Louisiana corporation, appeals the dismissal of its suit against Insta-Mix, Inc., and several related entities (collectively "Insta-Mix"), citizens of Colorado, for lack of personal jurisdiction. We reverse and remand.

I.

Luv n' care is an international corporation based in Monroe, Louisiana, that specializes in the design, manufacture, and sale of a variety of infant care products. Insta-Mix is a small Colorado corporation that holds the patent on a two-chambered plastic bottle with a freezable core, for use by both athletes and children. The design of the straw cap of Insta-Mix's bottle allegedly bears resemblance to a bottle cap produced by Luv n' care.1

Insta-Mix has sold 82,224 of its patented bottles to Wal-Mart and a few other vendors. Although Wal-Mart resells the product at its retail locations, Insta-Mix does not ship the product directly to Wal-Mart stores but, instead, trucks or third-party carriers assigned by Wal-Mart transport the bottles from Insta-Mix's dock in Colorado Springs to one of twenty-six distribution centers nationwide.

The vendor agreement that gives Wal-Mart the right to purchase and retail these bottles indicates that Wal-Mart assumes ownership of the bottles when they are loaded in Colorado Springs. The agreement also mentions several possible distribution centers, but none in Louisiana. Wal-Mart transported 3,696 copies of the bottle, or approximately 65 shipments, with total revenue to Insta-Mix of $8,923.20, to its distribution center in Opelousas, Louisiana.

Insta-Mix received and filled purchase orders from Wal-Mart via an "Electronic Data Interchange" ("EDI") system, which contains information regarding the price, quantity, and destination of each shipment. Once an order is filled, the EDI system automatically sends to Wal-Mart an electronic invoice that contains the letterhead of an Insta-Mix-related entity and the destination address.

The record contains several invoices with a "send to" location of the Wal-Mart distribution center in Opelousas. Insta-Mix alleges that it had no knowledge of the destination of the products until it printed out information from the EDI system in response to a discovery request in this litigation. It appears that eventually some of Insta-Mix's bottles reached Wal-Mart stores in Louisiana, repackaged under the Wal-Mart trade name.

It is undisputed that Insta-Mix has no employees or agent for service of process in Louisiana and conducts no direct sales or marketing there. Rather, its only contact with Louisiana is its sales of items to Wal-Mart.

II.

Luv n' care sued Insta-Mix for copyright infringement, 17 U.S.C. § 101 et seq., and trademark dilution and unfair competition under the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1125(a)(1)(A) and (B). Insta-Mix moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2) and (3) for lack of personal jurisdiction and improper venue.

The magistrate judge issued a recommendation that the suit be dismissed because "[s]imply placing [a] product in the stream of commerce is not sufficient to create personal jurisdiction even if it were foreseeable that the product might end up in Louisiana." Because the magistrate judge found the jurisdictional issue dispositive, he did not reach the venue issue. The district court adopted the recommendation.

III.

We review de novo a district court's determination that it lacks personal jurisdiction over a non-resident defendant. Adams v. Unione Mediterranea Di Sicurta, 220 F.3d 659, 667 (5th Cir.2000). Where a defendant challenges personal jurisdiction, the party seeking to invoke the power of the court bears the burden of proving that jurisdiction exists. Wyatt v. Kaplan, 686 F.2d 276, 280 (5th Cir.1982). The plaintiff need not, however, establish jurisdiction by a preponderance of the evidence; a prima facie showing suffices. Id. This court must resolve all undisputed facts submitted by the plaintiff, as well as all facts contested in the affidavits, in favor of jurisdiction. Id.

The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees that no federal court may assume jurisdiction in personam of a non-resident defendant unless the defendant has meaningful "contacts, ties, or relations" with the forum state. Int'l Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 319, 66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945). Jurisdiction may be general or specific. Where a defendant has "continuous and systematic general business contacts" with the forum state, Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia, S.A. v. Hall, 466 U.S. 408, 415, 104 S.Ct. 1868, 80 L.Ed.2d 404 (1984), the court may exercise "general" jurisdiction over any action brought against that defendant. Id. at 414, 104 S.Ct. 1868 n. 9.2 Where contacts are less pervasive, the court may still exercise "specific" jurisdiction "in a suit arising out of or related to the defendant's contacts with the forum." Id. at 414, 104 S.Ct. 1868 n. 8. This case presents only the question of specific jurisdiction.

A federal court may satisfy the constitutional requirements for specific jurisdiction by a showing that the defendant has "minimum contacts" with the forum state such that imposing a judgment would not "offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice." Int'l Shoe, 326 U.S. at 316, 66 S.Ct. 154. In Nuovo Pignone v. STORMAN ASIA M/V, 310 F.3d 374 (5th Cir.2002), we consolidated the personal jurisdiction inquiry into a convenient three-step analysis: "(1) whether the defendant . . . purposely directed its activities toward the forum state or purposely availed itself of the privileges of conducting activities there; (2) whether the plaintiff's cause of action arises out of or results from the defendant's forum-related contacts; and (3) whether the exercise of personal jurisdiction is fair and reasonable." Id. at 378 (citing Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 474, 105 S.Ct. 2174, 85 L.Ed.2d 528 (1985)). The forum state may create, and this court would be bound to apply, additional jurisdictional restrictions by statute, Adams, 220 F.3d at 667, but Louisiana's "long-arm" statute extends jurisdiction to the constitutional limit, LA. R.S. 13:3201(B), so the two inquiries in this case fold into one.

A.

To determine whether Insta-Mix has "minimum contacts" with Louisiana, we must identify some act whereby it "purposely avail[ed] itself of the privilege of conducting activities [there], thus invoking the benefits and protections of its laws."3 The defendant's conduct must show that it "reasonably anticipates being haled into court" in Louisiana. World Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286, 297, 100 S.Ct. 559, 62 L.Ed.2d 490 (1980). Likewise, a defendant may permissibly alter its behavior in certain ways to avoid being subject to suit. Id.

The district court erred in holding that placing a product into the stream of commerce, at least where the defendant knows the product will ultimately reach the forum state, does not rise to the level of "purposeful availment." This court has consistently held that "mere foreseeability or awareness [is] a constitutionally sufficient basis for personal jurisdiction if the defendant's product made its way into the forum state while still in the stream of commerce."4 We adopted this position in an effort faithfully to interpret World Wide Volkswagen, 444 U.S. at 298, 100 S.Ct. 559, which holds that a state does not offend due process by exercising jurisdiction over an entity that "delivers its products into the stream of commerce with the expectation that they will be purchased by consumers in the forum State."

Where a defendant knowingly benefits from the availability of a particular state's market for its products, it is only fitting that the defendant be amenable to suit in that state.5 We have, therefore, declined to follow the suggestion of the plurality in Asahi, 480 U.S. at 112, 107 S.Ct. 1026, that some additional action on the part of the defendant, beyond foreseeability, is necessary to "convert the mere act of placing the product into the stream into an act purposefully directed toward the forum State."6 Applying this circuit's more relaxed "mere foreseeability" test to the facts of this case, we conclude that Insta-Mix's contacts with Louisiana are sufficient to withstand constitutional scrutiny.

Insta-Mix maintains that Wal-Mart had complete control over the ultimate destination of its goods once they left the warehouse in Colorado Springs and that Wal-Mart could even make a mid-stream decision to re-route the goods to other distribution centers not listed on the invoices. A "unilateral decision to take a chattel . . . to a distant State" does not suffice to confer jurisdiction. World Wide Volkswagen, 444 U.S. at 314, 100 S.Ct. 559.7 This case, though, does not present facts to the effect that a buyer transported goods intended for Louisiana to a distribution center in a far-away state. Rather, in 2002 and 2003 Insta-Mix filled approximately sixty-five purchase orders for items bound for Louisiana and sent invoices to Wal-Mart confirming the same.

Insta-Mix claims that its employees had no actual knowledge of the intended destination of its goods until it consulted the EDI system in preparation for this...

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