Maxchief loses appeal at CAFC

The outcome:


Maxchief Investments Limited (“Maxchief”) appeals
from the judgment of the District Court for the Eastern
District of Tennessee. The district court dismissed
Maxchief’s declaratory judgment action against Wok &
Pan, Ind., Inc. (“Wok”) for lack of personal jurisdiction
and dismissed Maxchief’s tortious interference claim for
lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Because Wok lacked
sufficient contacts with the forum state of Tennessee for
personal jurisdiction as to both the declaratory judgment
claim and the tortious interference claim, we affirm.



The CAFC made an analogy:



This case is analogous to Walden. There, Nevada
plaintiffs sued an out-of-state defendant for conducting an
allegedly unlawful search while the plaintiffs were in
Georgia preparing to board a plane bound for Nevada. Id.
at 279–81. The Court held that the Nevada courts lacked
jurisdiction even though the plaintiffs were Nevada
residents and “suffered foreseeable harm in Nevada”
because the defendant’s “relevant conduct occurred entirely
in Georgia.” Id. at 289, 291. The defendant’s “actions
in Georgia did not create sufficient contacts with Nevada
simply because he allegedly directed his conduct at plaintiffs
whom he knew had Nevada connections.” Id. at 289.
So too here. Wok’s California lawsuit did not create
sufficient contacts with Tennessee simply because Wok
directed the lawsuit at an entity (Staples) that Wok knew
had a Tennessee connection (Meco).