Phil Laboon and Eyeflow Internet Marketing LLC v. Service Concierge LLC, P50 Digital LLC, Cem Osma, Jenna Donegan, and Shanell Nesbit

Summary

The United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania denied Defendants’ motions to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2). The court held that Plaintiffs established specific jurisdiction under the Calder effects test based on alleged trade-secret misappropriation and related intentional torts directed at Pennsylvania residents and a Pennsylvania business. The court rejected Defendants’ arguments concerning the location of cloud-based servers and reserved their merits-based defenses for later proceedings.

Holdings

1. The court could not exercise general personal jurisdiction over the defendants because no defendant was alleged to be essentially at home in Pennsylvania.
2. The plaintiffs established a prima facie basis for specific personal jurisdiction over all defendants under the Calder effects test.
3. The individual defendants' denials that they participated in or had access to the alleged trade-secret theft did not require dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the defendants were subject to general personal jurisdiction in Pennsylvania.
2. Whether the plaintiffs established specific personal jurisdiction over the defendants under the Calder effects test based on alleged intentional misappropriation of trade secrets and related torts directed at a Pennsylvania business and resident.
3. Whether the individual defendants' denials of participation in the alleged misappropriation required dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction at the Rule 12(b)(2) stage.

Disposition

dismissed