Vachani v. Yakovlev et al
Filing
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ORDER by Judge Laurel Beeler denying #52 Motion for Default Judgment. Because the court holds that it cannot exercise personal jurisdiction, the defendants are dismissed from this suit. The plaintiffs have now had multiple opportunities to establish personal jurisdiction. Further amendment would appear to be futile. The court therefore dismisses the defendants without prejudice to the plaintiffs' claims against them, but without leave to amend the pleadings in this case. The court directs the clerk of court to close this file. This disposes of ECF No. 52. (lblc3S, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 7/5/2017)
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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
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NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
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San Francisco Division
United States District Court
Northern District of California
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STEVEN SURAJ VACHANI, et al.,
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Case No. 15-cv-04296-LB
Plaintiffs,
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v.
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ARTHUR YAKOVLEV, et al.,
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Defendants.
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ORDER DENYING
DEFAULT JUDGMENT
& CLOSING CASE
Re: ECF No. 52
INTRODUCTION
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This internet-defamation case is before the court on the plaintiffs‘ renewed motion for default
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judgment.1 This is the plaintiffs‘ fourth such motion. The court denied their first three motions
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because the plaintiffs had not shown that this court could constitutionally exercise personal
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jurisdiction over the defendants, who appear to be residents of Brazil.2 The court has also
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expressed doubt about whether the plaintiffs could establish either of their claims (for libel and
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false light) against defendant Peres.3 Under Eitel v. McCool, 782 F.2d 1470, 1471–72 (9th Cir.
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Motion – ECF No. 52. Record citations refer to material in the Electronic Case File (―ECF‖);
pinpoint citations are to the ECF-generated page numbers at the top of documents.
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Orders – ECF No. 27 at 7–10; ECF No. 40 at 7–9; ECF No. 48.
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See Order – ECF No. 40 at 10–13.
ORDER – No. 15-cv-04296-LB
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1986), the latter failing would hamper the plaintiffs‘ bid to obtain a default judgment against Ms.
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Peres.4 The court can decide this motion without oral argument. See Civil L.R. § 7-1(b).
The court again denies the plaintiffs‘ motion. The court‘s previous analysis stands — and, with
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the additional comments made below, the court again adopts its earlier reasoning here.5 (The court
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assumes that the reader is familiar with those prior orders.) The plaintiffs still have not shown that
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the defendants ―purposefully directed‖ their conduct toward this forum within the meaning of
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governing jurisdictional doctrine. More specifically, they have not adequately shown that the
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defendants ―expressly aimed‖ their conduct toward a known resident of California within the
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meaning of the ―effects test‖ derived from Calder v. Jones, 465 U.S. 783 (1984). If the facts do
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show ―purposeful direction,‖ they do so only minimally; the court still concludes that asserting
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United States District Court
Northern District of California
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personal jurisdiction over the defendants ―would not comport with fair play and substantial
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justice.‖ See Schwarzenegger v. Fred Martin Motor Co., 374 F.3d 797, 801–02 (9th Cir. 2004)
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(quoting Int’l Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 316 (1945)). This is especially true with
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respect to defendant Peres. For that ultimate reason the court would still deny the default-judgment
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motion.
Furthermore — considering the ―merits of [their] substantive claims‖ and the ―sufficiency of
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the complaint,‖ Eitel, 782 F.2d at 1471–72 — the plaintiffs still seem unlikely to prove libel or
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false light against Ms. Peres. This too cuts against granting a default judgment against her. See id.
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ANALYSIS
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The plaintiffs‘ latest motion puts a new emphasis on the defendants‘ knowledge. Specifically,
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the plaintiffs again point out that, as their former employee, defendant Yakovlev would likely
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know that Mr. Vachani resides in California. It is therefore reasonable (the plaintiffs say) to
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conclude both that Mr. Yakovlev ―expressly aimed‖ his online gripes at someone whom he knew
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to be a California resident, and that he knew that he would likely cause harm in this state.6
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Id.
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See id. at 7–9; ECF No. 27 at 7–10.
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The plaintiffs suggest other grounds from which the court might infer that Mr. Yakovlev knew that
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ORDER – No. 15-cv-04296-LB
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The court has already mostly addressed this issue. It has found Mr. Yakovlev‘s inferred
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knowledge too lonely and slim a reed on which to hang transnational personal jurisdiction. In their
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latest motion, though, the plaintiffs point with new clarity and force to a Ninth Circuit decision
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that they say decides the issue in their favor. That case is CollegeSource, Inc. v. AcademyOne, Inc.,
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653 F.3d 1066 (9th Cir. 2011). The Ninth Circuit there wrote: ―[T]he ‗express aiming‘ requirement
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[of Calder] . . . is satisfied when ‗the defendant is alleged to have engaged in wrongful conduct
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targeted at a plaintiff whom the defendant knows to be a resident of the forum state.‘‖ Id. at 1077
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(emphasis added) (quoting Bancroft & Masters, Inc. v. Augusta Nat’l, Inc., 223 F.3d 1082, 1087
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(9th Cir. 2000)).7 That, in the plaintiffs‘ view, seals the jurisdictional analysis.
The court understands the plaintiffs‘ argument. The court nevertheless concludes that it cannot
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Northern District of California
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apply CollegeSource so broadly.
First, other appellate and district-court decisions in this circuit have read CollegeSource, and
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have applied the ―express aiming‖ test, more restrictively. These cases cast doubt on whether
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CollegeSource enunciated quite so broad a rule. A court in this district has thus explained:
Despite [its] seemingly broad formulation, . . . CollegeSource did not give the
defendant’s knowledge of the plaintiff's residence dispositive weight, but rather
concluded that [defendant] Academy One — a company that competed with
CollegeSource ―in the market to assist students and educational institutions with the
college transfer process,‖ [CollegeSource] at *1 — had expressly aimed its conduct
at the forum due to its alleged individual targeting of CollegeSource’s California
business and the fact that ―CollegeSource and AcademyOne were direct
competitors in a relatively small industry.‖ Id. at *9.
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Lang v. Morris, 823 F. Supp. 2d 966, 973 (N.D. Cal. 2011) (emphases added). ―Thus,‖ the Lang
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court concluded, ―the full analysis in CollegeSource‖ is ―entirely consistent‖ with earlier Ninth
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Circuit decisions that had taken a more stringent approach to ―express aiming.‖ Lang, 823 F. Supp.
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2d at 972–73 (discussing Love v. Associated Newspapers, Ltd., 611 F.3d 601 (9th Cir. 2010) and
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Mr. Vachani is a California resident. They mention another, unrelated lawsuit against Mr. Vachani in
California, and Mr. Vachani‘s relationship with a third party who is not a litigant here. The court has
addressed these items before and has not changed its mind. These neither show Mr. Yakovlev‘s
knowledge of Mr. Vachani‘s residence, nor otherwise provide good grounds for stretching personal
jurisdiction over the foreign defendants. That Mr. Yakovlev used to work for Mr. Vachani is the only
fact that plausibly suggests that the former might have known that the latter lives in California.
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See ECF No. 52 at 10.
ORDER – No. 15-cv-04296-LB
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Brayton Purcell LLP v. Recordon & Recordon, 606 F.3d 1124 (9th Cir. 2010)). This court basically
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agrees with this aspect of Lang.
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Second, CollegeSource is factually different from this case. In CollegeSource there were more
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factual pillars on which to rest a firm decision that the defendant had expressly aimed at a known
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California resident. Thus, in distinguishing CollegeSource, a sister district usefully described
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CollegeSource’s operative facts:
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United States District Court
Northern District of California
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In CollegeSource, one website offering college referral services copied material
from a [California] competitor‘s website and posted it on its own site. Prior to
posting the material, the defendant made phone calls and sent emails and letters to
the plaintiff seeking to purchase the copied material. The court found that these
communications were a part of the defendant‘s efforts to obtain and make
commercial use of the plaintiff‘s copyrighted material and showed that in posting
the infringing materials defendant had intentionally aimed at the plaintiff in the
forum.
Defendants, unlike those in CollegeSource, did not have any contacts with the
forum state that enabled or contributed to their promotional activities.
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Wine Grp. LLC v. Levitation Mgmt., LLC, 2011 WL 4738335, at *9 (E.D. Cal. Oct. 6, 2011).
Like Wine Group, this case shows less defendant contact with California, and less active
―targeting‖ of the California resident, than did CollegeSource. Here, at most, the facts show only
Mr. Yakovlev‘s bare knowledge of Mr. Vachani‘s California residence. This court is not convinced
that, even under CollegeSource, Mr. Yakovlev‘s inferred knowledge should be given ―dispositive
weight‖ in the specific-jurisdiction analysis.
Acknowledging the fuller factual landscape of CollegSource limits the effective reach of that
case‘s ostensibly broad ―express aiming‖ sub-rule. Even under CollegeSource, it is less than clear
that a defendant‘s bare knowledge of the plaintiff‘s residence can alone support specific personal
jurisdiction. Much less can it be said that jurisdiction must follow in every case in which the
defendant may have known that the plaintiff was a forum resident. In some situations the
defendant‘s knowledge will count for more; in other cases, it will matter less.
There remains the discrete question of ―fair play and substantial justice.‖ The court continues
to think that this mandatory and important backstop prevents an assertion of jurisdiction over the
defendants. Even if the plaintiffs have minimally satisfied the ―express aiming‖ and hence the
ORDER – No. 15-cv-04296-LB
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―purposeful direction‖ tests, in other words, the court still concludes that hauling the defendants
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from Brazil into California court, in these circumstances, ―would not comport with fair play and
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substantial justice.‖ See Schwarzenegger, 374 F.3d at 801–02 (quoting International Shoe, 326
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U.S. at 316). Again, this is especially true of Ms. Peres.
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At this point, the court would offer one final word. It is not inconceivable that the plaintiffs
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have the better view of personal jurisdiction. Perhaps specific personal jurisdiction can extend
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internationally, consistent with due process, where a defendant has posted a handful of unwelcome
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comments on the internet, and where the defendant‘s ―minimum contacts‖ consist only in knowing
that the plaintiff resides in the forum state — a contact bolstered, perhaps, by the fact that the
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United States District Court
Northern District of California
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knowledge is inferred from the parties‘ past personal relationship. That seems a fine thread from
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which to spin a rather sweeping jurisdiction. This case, and cases like it, pose a hard question at
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the intersection of judicial power and contemporary technology. If personal jurisdiction is to flow
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from these facts, then that rule must be laid down first by an appellate court. This court of first
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resort must err on the side of conservatism. Particularly where the issue is the reach of judicial
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power. On the facts before it, and under the law as it best reads it, the court denies the plaintiffs‘
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motion for default judgment.
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ORDER – No. 15-cv-04296-LB
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CONCLUSION
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The plaintiffs‘ motion for default judgment is denied. Because the court has held that it cannot
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exercise personal jurisdiction over the defendants, those defendants are dismissed from this suit.
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The plaintiffs have now had multiple opportunities to identify facts that would support personal
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jurisdiction. Further amendment would appear to be futile. The court therefore dismisses the
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defendants without prejudice to the plaintiffs‘ claims against them, but without leave to amend the
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pleadings in this case. The court directs the clerk of court to close this file. This disposes of ECF
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No. 52.
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IT IS SO ORDERED.
Dated: July 5, 2017
______________________________________
LAUREL BEELER
United States Magistrate Judge
United States District Court
Northern District of California
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ORDER – No. 15-cv-04296-LB
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