Hudnall v. State Bar of Georgia

Filing 24

ORDER GRANTING 9 Motion to Dismiss ; DENYING AS MOOT 11 Motion for Declaratory Judgment Signed by Judge Kathleen Cardone. (mn)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS
EL PASO DIVISION
ROBERT KENNETH HUDNALL,
Plaintiff,
v.
STATE BAR OF GEORGIA,
Defendant.

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EP-15-CV-364-KC

ORDER
On this day, the Court considered Defendant’s Brief Concerning Jurisdiction in Response to
Court Order and Motion to Dismiss Pursuant to Rule 12(b)(2) (“Motion to Dismiss”), ECF No. 9,
and Plaintiff’s Motion for Declaratory Judgment, ECF No. 11. For the following reasons, the Motion
to Dismiss is GRANTED, and the Motion for Declaratory Judgment is DENIED as moot.
I.

BACKGROUND
This case has its origin in disciplinary proceedings that culminated in the Supreme Court of

Georgia’s decision, in 1989, to accept Plaintiff’s application for voluntary surrender of his license to
practice law in the State of Georgia. See In re Hudnall, 259 Ga. 247 (1989); Am. Pet. 5, 19, Notice
of Removal Ex. No. 1, ECF No. 1-1.1 The Supreme Court of Georgia stated that Plaintiff had
“petitioned for voluntary surrender of his license to practice law in the State of Georgia,” and upon
accepting Plaintiff’s application, noted that Plaintiff was effectively disbarred in Georgia. See In re
Hudnall, 259 Ga. at 247. According to Defendant, the disciplinary proceedings against Plaintiff were
“conducted pursuant to the Rules and Regulations for the Organization and Government of the State
Bar of Georgia,” and were “undertaken as part of the disciplinary process set forth by the Supreme
1

For clarity in citing to the Amended Petition, the Court cites to the page numbers provided by the Court’s
electronic docketing system.

Court of Georgia in the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct.” Aff. of Paula J. Frederick
(“Frederick Aff.”) 3, Mot. to Dismiss Ex. No. 2, ECF No. 9-2. 2
According to Plaintiff, a citizen of Texas, a document entitled “Petition for Voluntary
Surrender of License” (“Petition for Voluntary Surrender”), which the Supreme Court of Georgia
relied upon in accepting Plaintiff’s application for surrender of his license, contains a forgery of his
signature. See, e.g., Am. Pet. 4-5, 8-9. The Petition for Voluntary Surrender, filed in the Supreme
Court of Georgia on February 9, 1989, states: “Robert K. Hudnall, Respondent in the abovecaptioned matters, and pursuant to Bar Rule 4-212(d) files . . . his Petition for Voluntary Surrender of
License with the Special Master for the State Bar of Georgia, after the issuance of Formal
Complaints . . . .” See Pet. for Voluntary Surrender 49, 88, Notice of Removal Ex. No. 1, ECF No.
1-1.3 The Petition recounts a series of wrongdoings Plaintiff committed in violation of State Bar of
Georgia Rules, and concludes by stating: “[Plaintiff] respectfully submits that the appropriate
discipline to be imposed under the circumstances is to accept [Plaintiff]’s Petition for Voluntary
Surrender of License,” and that Plaintiff “prays that this Petition for Voluntary Surrender of License
be accepted by the Special Master, Review Panel and Supreme Court of Georgia.” Id. at 88.
Although the Petition for Voluntary Surrender is dated January 30, 1989, and signed by “Robert K.
Hudnall, Respondent,” Plaintiff maintains that this signature is not his, and that he never signed the
Petition for Voluntary Surrender. See id.; see, e.g., Am. Pet. 4-5.
Plaintiff alleges that for over twenty-five years, Defendant “has stalked him across the
country causing him to be terminated from numerous positions and denied the opportunity for entry
into other Bars.” Am. Pet. 37. According to Plaintiff, at some point, Defendant distributed the
2

When deciding a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, the Court is not limited to considering the
allegations in the complaint, but may also consider contents of the record. See Hazim v. Schiel & Denver Book
Publishers, No. 15-20586, 2016 WL 2609772, at *1 (5th Cir. May 5, 2016).
3

For clarity in citing to the Petition for Voluntary Surrender, the Court cites to the page numbers provided by the
Court’s electronic docketing system.
2

Petition for Voluntary Surrender to the United States Attorney in El Paso, Texas, and to the Assistant
Attorney General of Texas. See, e.g., id. at 40. The Petition for Voluntary Surrender, according to
Plaintiff, was “the reason he was denied a federal position since it was the opinion of the Assistant
U.S. Attorney in El Paso that due to this alleged confession[,] Plaintiff could not pass a background
check.” Id. at 43.
Defendant states that the Petition for Voluntary Surrender “is a public document that is part
of the record in [Plaintiff’s] disciplinary case at the Supreme Court of Georgia.” Frederick Aff. 2.
Further, “[a]ny individual or entity could obtain the record by requesting it from the Clerk of the
Supreme Court [of Georgia].” Id. Defendant states that it “does not, on its own volition, send
disciplinary information about any member or former member to anyone.” 4 Id. Instead, Defendant
“provide[s] information in response to requests from individuals or entities.” Id. Defendant usually
receives such requests when a member or former member of the State Bar of Georgia seeks
admission to the bar of another state, or has applied for a position which requires the member or
former member “to provide a disciplinary history.” Id. In the event Defendant were to receive a
request regarding Plaintiff, Defendant “would provide a copy of the Order accepting Plaintiff’s
voluntary surrender of license,” and would also provide the Petition for Voluntary Surrender if a
requesting party asked for the document. Id. at 2-3.
On October 8, 2015, Plaintiff filed his Amended Petition in the 171st District Court of El
Paso County, Texas. See Am. Pet. 3. Through his Amended Petition, Plaintiff brought three causes
of action against Defendant State Bar of Georgia, including defamation, stalking, and denial of rights
under color of law. See id. at 39-45. Defendant removed the case to this Court on December 3,
2015, on the basis of federal question and diversity jurisdiction. See Notice of Removal, ECF No. 1;

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The only exception, not relevant here, is when a member of the State Bar of Georgia who is being investigated is
also a member of another state’s bar, in which case Defendant “would notify the sister state so that it could do a
reciprocal discipline case.” Frederick Aff. 2 n.1.
3

see also Mot. to Dismiss 9 (stating that the Court has jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s state law claims for
stalking based on diversity jurisdiction). Defendant filed its Motion to Dismiss on February 29,
2016, alleging, among other things, that the Court lacks personal jurisdiction over Defendant. See
Mot. to Dismiss. Plaintiff filed his Motion for Declaratory Judgment on March 15, 2016. See Mot.
for Decl. J.
II.

DISCUSSION
A.

Standard

A district court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant if: “(1) the
long-arm statute of the forum state creates personal jurisdiction over the defendant; and (2) the
exercise of personal jurisdiction is consistent with the due process guarantees of the United States
Constitution.” Clemens v. McNamee, 615 F.3d 374, 378 (5th Cir. 2010). Because Texas’s long-arm
statute extends to the limits of due process, the Court’s inquiry is limited to whether exercising
personal jurisdiction over the defendant offends due process. Pervasive Software, Inc. v. Lexware
GmbH & Co. KG, 688 F.3d 214, 220 (5th Cir. 2012) (citations omitted); Clemens, 615 F.3d at 378;
Stroman Realty, Inc. v. Antt, 528 F.3d 382, 385 (5th Cir. 2008).
A court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant comports with due
process requirements when “(1) that defendant has purposefully availed himself of the benefits and
protections of the forum state by establishing minimum contacts with the forum state and (2) the
exercise of jurisdiction over that defendant does not offend traditional notions of fair play and
substantial justice.” Clemens, 615 F.3d at 378. Two types of contacts may satisfy the “minimum
contacts” requirement: contacts that give rise to specific jurisdiction and those that give rise to
general jurisdiction. Id. Specific jurisdiction arises when the defendant has “purposefully directed
his activities at residents of the forum . . . and the litigation results from alleged injuries that arise out

4

of or relate to those activities.” Id. at 379 (internal quotation marks omitted) (alteration in original)
(quoting Burger King v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 472 (1985)). In contrast, general jurisdiction
exists “only where a defendant maintains ‘continuous and systematic’ contacts with the forum state.”
Herman v. Cataphora, Inc., 730 F.3d 460, 464 (5th Cir. 2013) (quoting Bullion v. Gillespie, 895 F.2d
213, 216 (5th Cir. 1990)).
The plaintiff bears the burden of establishing that the court may exercise personal jurisdiction
over the nonresident defendant. Clemens, 615 F.3d at 378. If the court rules on personal jurisdiction
without holding an evidentiary hearing, the plaintiff need only establish a prima facie case of
personal jurisdiction. Hazim v. Schiel & Denver Book Publishers, No. 15-20586, 2016 WL 2609772,
at *1 (5th Cir. May 5, 2016) (citation omitted). The court “must accept the plaintiff’s uncontroverted
allegations as true, and resolve in his favor all conflicts between the facts contained in the parties’
affidavits and other documentation.” Clemens, 615 F.3d at 378 (citing Revell v. Lidov, 317 F.3d 467,
469 (5th Cir. 2002)). Further, the court “is not obligated to consult only the assertions in the
plaintiff’s complaint in determining whether a prima facie case for jurisdiction has been made,” but
may also “consider the contents of the record at the time of the motion.” Hazim, 2016 WL 2609772,
at *1 (citation omitted).
B.

Personal Jurisdiction

Defendant argues that the Court should dismiss Plaintiff’s case because the Court lacks
personal jurisdiction over Defendant. See Mot. to Dismiss 6-8. Specifically, Defendant asserts that it
does not have sufficient minimum contacts with Texas, and that the Court’s exercise of personal
jurisdiction over Defendant would offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice. See
id. at 7, 11-14. With respect to the first requirement—that Defendant has sufficient minimum
contacts with Texas—Plaintiff does not assert that Defendant has minimum contacts giving rise to

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general jurisdiction, but instead appears to argue that the Court may exercise specific jurisdiction
over Defendant. See Resp. 8-10, ECF No. 12. Thus, the Court addresses whether Defendant has
established minimum contacts giving rise to specific jurisdiction only.
1.

Specific Jurisdiction

According to Defendant, the Court lacks jurisdiction over Defendant because its only contact
with Texas is its act of providing a publicly available document to government officials in Texas who
requested the document. Mot. to Dismiss 12. This contact, Defendant argues, “is the very definition
of ‘random, isolated, or fortuitous.’” Id. Moreover, Defendant asserts that “as an arm of the Georgia
Supreme Court tasked with regulating the legal profession in Georgia, [it] sought no ‘benefit,
advantage, or profit’” when it provided the Petition for Voluntary Surrender to officials in Texas who
requested the document. Id. Defendant also notes that it has no offices in Texas, conducts no
business in Texas, and has contact with Texas only when a person or entity requests information
from Defendant. Id. Defendant argues that as a result, it “could not reasonably anticipate being sued
in Texas based on its conduct.” Id.
For the Court to exercise personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant, the nonresident
defendant must have “fair warning that a particular activity may subject [them] to the jurisdiction of
a foreign sovereign.” Burger King, 471 U.S. at 472 (alteration in original) (citation omitted). Thus,
“[t]he inquiry whether a forum State may assert specific jurisdiction over a nonresident focuses on
the relationship among the defendant, the forum, and the litigation.” Walden v. Fiore, --- U.S. ----,
134 S. Ct. 1115, 1121 (2014) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Keeton v. Hustler
Magazine, Inc., 465 U.S. 770, 775 (1984) (citations omitted)). For a court to exercise specific
jurisdiction, “[f]irst, the relationship must arise out of contacts that the ‘defendant himself’ creates
with the forum State.” Id. at 1122 (quoting Burger King, 471 U.S. at 475). Such “contacts must

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have been purposefully established by the defendant.” Pervasive Software, 688 F.3d at 227 (citation
omitted); see Christian Tours, Inc. v. Homeric Tours, Inc., 239 F.3d 366, 2000 WL 1741614, at *1
(5th Cir. Nov. 13, 2000). And, “[a] court does not acquire jurisdiction over a defendant as the result
of unilateral activities by another person.” Caldwell v. Palmetto State Sav. Bank of S.C., 811 F.2d
916, 918 (5th Cir. 1987). Requiring that the defendant himself create the contacts with the forum
state “ensures that a defendant will not be haled into a jurisdiction solely as a result of . . . the
unilateral activity of another party or a third person.” Burger King, 471 U.S. at 475 (internal
quotation marks omitted) (quoting Keeton, 465 U.S. at 774; Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia,
S.A. v. Hall, 466 U.S. 408, 417 (1984); World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286,
299 (1980)).
Second, the court examines “the defendant’s contacts with the forum State itself,” and not
merely “the defendant’s contacts with persons who reside there.” Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1122 (citing
Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U.S. 235, 251 (1958); Int’l Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 319
(1945)); see Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1124 (explaining that in Calder v. Jones, 465 U.S. 783 (1984), the
Court “examined the various contacts the defendants had created with [the forum state] (and not just
with the plaintiff)”). Thus, the Supreme Court has upheld a court’s exercise of specific jurisdiction
where defendants “have purposefully ‘reach[ed] out beyond’ their State and into another by, for
example, entering a contractual relationship that ‘envisioned continuing and wide-reaching contacts’
in the forum State, . . . or by circulating magazines to ‘deliberately exploi[t]’ a market in the forum
State[.]” Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1122 (first and third alterations in original) (citations omitted).
However, a nonresident defendant’s “relationship with a plaintiff or third party, standing
alone, is an insufficient basis for jurisdiction.” Id. at 1123. Instead, “the defendant’s conduct . . .
must form the necessary connection with the forum State,” and must “connect[] him to the forum in a

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meaningful way.” Id. at 1122, 1125. “Due process requires that a defendant be haled into court in a
forum State based on his own affiliation with the State, not based on the ‘random, fortuitous, or
attenuated’ contacts he makes by interacting with other persons affiliated with the State.” Id. at 1123
(quoting Burger King, 471 U.S. at 475). Additionally, while “physical presence in the forum is not a
prerequisite to jurisdiction, . . . physical entry into the State—either by the defendant in person or
through an agent, goods, mail, or some other means—is certainly a relevant contact.” Id. at 1122
(citations omitted).
Although even “a single act directed at the forum” may give rise to specific jurisdiction,
Herman, 730 F.3d at 464 (quoting Bullion, 895 F.2d at 216), it is nonetheless imperative “that there
be some act by which the defendant purposefully avails himself of the privilege of conducting
activities with the forum state, thus invoking the benefits and protections of its laws,” Clemens, 615
F.3d at 379 (citing Hanson, 357 U.S. at 253). Courts reason that when a nonresident defendant’s
purposefully directed “activities are shielded by the benefits and protections of the forum’s laws[,] it
is presumptively not unreasonable to require him to submit to the burdens of litigation in that forum
as well.” El Paso Healthcare Sys., Ltd. v. Molina Healthcare of N.M, Inc., Civil Action No. 3:09CV-54-KC, 2009 WL 1743221, at *4 (W.D. Tex. May 1, 2009) (quoting Burger King, 471 U.S. at
474); see Phillips Exeter Acad. v. Howard Phillips Fund, 196 F.3d 284, 292 (1st Cir. 1999) (noting
that in determining whether defendant purposefully availed himself of the privilege of conducting
activities in forum state, court must consider “whether the defendant benefitted from those contacts
in a way that made jurisdiction foreseeable,” even if “defendant’s contacts with the forum are
deemed voluntary”).
In this case, Defendant’s only relevant contacts with Texas, from which Plaintiff’s causes of
action arise, are Defendant’s sending the Petition for Voluntary Surrender to the United States

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Attorney in El Paso, Texas, and to the Assistant Attorney General of Texas. See Am. Pet. 38. Thus,
the Court must discern whether Defendant’s sending the Petition for Voluntary Surrender to these
two individuals constituted Defendant’s purposeful availment such that Defendant could have
reasonably anticipated being haled into a Texas court as a result of these acts. See Herman, 730 F.3d
at 464 (quoting Clemens, 615 F.3d at 379).
Plaintiff has not met his burden of establishing that the Court may exercise personal
jurisdiction over Defendant. Plaintiff has failed to make a prima facie showing that Defendant has
minimum contacts with Texas giving rise to specific jurisdiction. First, it is relevant to the Court’s
inquiry that, although Defendant sent the Petition for Voluntary Surrender inside Texas to the United
States Attorney in El Paso and the Assistant Attorney General of Texas, Defendant did not
“purposefully” initiate these contacts with Texas. See Walton, 314 S. Ct. at 1122. Defendant
presented evidence establishing that it sends the Petition for Voluntary Surrender, which is a public
document, only to individuals or entities that request it. See Frederick Aff. 2-3. Defendant,
therefore, only sent the Petition for Voluntary Surrender to the United States Attorney in El Paso and
the Assistant Attorney General of Texas because these individuals requested the document. See id.;
Mot. to Dismiss 11-12. Plaintiff does not dispute this evidence, and does not argue that Defendant
sent the Petition for Voluntary Surrender on its own initiative. See Resp. ¶ 23 (stating only that if the
potential employers did request the document, “[P]laintiff is entitled to see the written request on
official stationary [sic]”). For this reason, Defendant’s contacts, which arose only in response to a
request by third persons located in Texas, do not constitute purposeful availment. See Rodi v. S. New
England Sch. of Law, 255 F. Supp. 2d 346, 350-51 (D. N.J. 2003) (finding no purposeful availment
where Plaintiff relied on two correspondences Defendant mailed into forum state in response to
Plaintiff’s actions, including sending request for information to Defendant); Christian Tours, 2000

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WL 1741614, at *1; see also Thomas v. Kadish, 748 F.2d 276, 282-83 (5th Cir. 1984) (noting that
basing personal jurisdiction upon letter, not claimed by plaintiff to be defamatory, and written by one
defendant “in response to a request from the Texas state bar initiated by [plaintiff] himself,” was
insufficient to establish minimum contacts for plaintiff’s claim that defendants conspired to create
record against him).
“Due process requires that a defendant be haled into court in a forum State based on his own
affiliation with the State, not based on the ‘random, fortuitous, or attenuated’ contacts he makes by
interacting with other persons affiliated with the State.” See Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1123 (quoting
Burger King, 471 U.S. at 475). Here, Defendant could not reasonably expect to be haled into court in
any state in which it sends a public document, based on the mere fortuity that the requesting party is
located in that state. See id. To do so would be to allow a court to exercise personal jurisdiction over
Defendant in any forum where Plaintiff happens to seek employment.
Plaintiff relies upon Defendant’s sending of the Petition for Voluntary Surrender to two
individuals inside Texas; however, these acts constitute two isolated contacts with individuals inside
Texas resulting from Defendant’s adherence to a routine request for a publicly available document.
See Frederick Aff. 1-2. Defendant’s contacts are significantly more limited in scope than the
contacts of “defendants who have purposefully ‘reach[ed] out beyond’ their State and into another
by, for example, entering a contractual relationship that ‘envisioned continuing and wide-reaching
contacts’ in the forum State, . . . or by circulating magazines to ‘deliberately exploi[t]’ a market in
the forum State[.]” Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1122 (first and third alterations in original) (citations
omitted). Defendant’s contacts with Texas—forwarding a public document in response to a standard
request from two employers considering hiring a former member of the Georgia Bar—are too
attenuated for Defendant to have had “fair warning” that it would be subject “to the jurisdiction of a

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foreign sovereign.” See Burger King, 471 U.S. at 472. Thus, Defendant’s acts do not establish
sufficient contact with Texas because Defendant’s conduct does not “connect[ it] to the forum in a
meaningful way.” See id. at 1125.
Furthermore, Defendant argues that sending the Petition for Voluntary Surrender to two
individuals in Texas is not an invocation of the benefits and protections of the laws of Texas, and that
it sought no “benefit, advantage, or profit” by forwarding the document. See Mot. to Dismiss 12.
The Court finds this argument persuasive: when a state bar reactively sends out requested notices in
a ministerial fashion, it does not appear to be acting purposefully, nor is it seeking any benefits or
protections from this forum state.
Moreover, this is not the first time that Plaintiff has litigated this issue. In 1994, Plaintiff
sued Defendant in New Mexico, alleging that Defendant “interfered with his admission into the Bar
of New Mexico and thus availed itself of the legal system of th[e] State.” Mem. Op. at 1, 4, Hudnall
v. State Bar of Ga., Civ. No. 94-409-HB (D. N.M. Dec. 5, 1994), ECF No. 86. The District of New
Mexico dismissed the case against Defendant for lack of personal jurisdiction, explaining that
Plaintiff had “not shown any act by which Defendant State Bar of Georgia purposefully availed itself
of the privilege of conducting activities within th[e] State.” Id. at 5. Likewise, in the instant case,
Plaintiff has not met his burden of demonstrating that there are acts by which Defendant
“purposefully avail[ed itself] of the privilege of conducting activities with the forum state, thus
invoking the benefits and protections of its laws.” See Clemens, 615 F.3d at 378; cf. Burger King,
471 U.S. at 478-80 (holding that nonresident defendant franchisees had purposefully availed
themselves of benefits and protections of forum state’s law, by entering into “carefully structured 20year relationship that envisioned continuing and wide-reaching contacts with Burger King in [forum

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state]”). The Court concludes that Defendant has not invoked the benefits and protections of the laws
of Texas.
Plaintiff relies exclusively on Calder v. Jones, 465 U.S. 783 (1984), as a basis for the Court’s
exercise of personal jurisdiction over Defendant. See Resp. 7-10. According to Plaintiff, Defendant
aimed its tortious conduct at him, knowing the brunt of Plaintiff’s injury would be felt in Texas, as
Plaintiff is a Texas resident. See id. In Calder, a California plaintiff brought a libel suit in a
California state court against a reporter and editor who worked for the National Enquirer. Calder,
465 U.S. at 784-85. The plaintiff’s claims were based on an article the defendants wrote and edited
in Florida for publication in the National Enquirer. See id. The National Enquirer, a national weekly
newspaper, was headquartered in Florida, but circulated approximately 600,000 copies in California.
See id. at 785.
The Court found the defendants’ contacts with the forum state were “ample”:
The defendants relied on phone calls to “California sources” for the information in their
article; they wrote the story about the plaintiff’s activities in California; they caused
reputational injury in California by writing an allegedly libelous article that was widely
circulated in the State; and the “brunt” of that injury was suffered by the plaintiff in that
State . . . . [T]he reputation-based “effects” of the alleged libel connected the defendants to
California, not just to the plaintiff.
Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1123-25.
As the Supreme Court recently explained, “Calder made clear that mere injury to a forum
resident is not a sufficient connection to the forum.” Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1125. Moreover, even if
the plaintiff suffered harm in the forum state and the defendant was aware of the likelihood of such
damage in the forum state, the Fifth Circuit has held that under Calder, specific jurisdiction does not
exist in a defamation case unless the plaintiff shows “the subject matter of and . . . the sources relied
upon for the article were in the forum state.” See Clemens, 615 F.3d at 379-80 (quoting Revell, 317
F.3d at 426). Thus, “[t]o support personal jurisdiction against the defaming defendant,” Calder

12

requires that the forum state be the “focal point” of the defamatory content. Id. at 379 (quoting
Calder, 465 U.S. at 788-89); see Herman, 730 F.3d at 465 (“A plaintiff’s suffering damage in the
forum state is part of the calculus, but for minimum contacts to be present the allegedly defamatory
statements must be adequately directed at the forum state.”).
Calder does not support this Court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over Defendant. First,
the fact that Plaintiff was injured in Texas is insufficient on its own to establish Defendant’s
minimum contacts with Texas. See Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1125. Second, Plaintiff fails to establish,
let alone argue, that Texas is the “focal point” of the defamatory content. See generally Resp.
Instead, the subject matter of the Petition for Voluntary Surrender centers on Plaintiff’s conduct in
Georgia while he was a member of the State Bar of Georgia. See, e.g., Pet. for Voluntary Surrender
50-55, 59-74, 77-78. The subject matter “did not concern activity in Texas; nor [was it] made in
Texas or directed to Texas residents any more than residents of any other state.” See Clemens, 615
F.3d at 380. Thus, the focal point of the allegedly defamatory content is Georgia, not Texas. See id.;
Revell, 317 F.3d at 473 (finding Texas was not focal point of defamatory statement sufficient to
establish minimum contacts under Calder because article contained “no reference to Texas,” did not
“refer to the Texas activities of [plaintiff],” and “was not directed at Texas readers as distinguished
from readers in other states”). Because Plaintiff fails to establish sufficient contacts between
Defendant and Texas, Calder does not support this Court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over
Defendant, even if Plaintiff suffered harm in Texas and Defendant was aware of the likelihood of
such damage in Texas. See Clemens, 615 F.3d at 379-80; Revell, 317 F.3d at 473.
Accepting Plaintiff’s uncontroverted allegations as true, and resolving in his favor any
conflicts between facts in the record, Plaintiff has failed to meet his burden of making a prima facie
case of personal jurisdiction. See Hazim, 2016 WL 2609772, at *1; Clemens, 615 F.3d at 378.

13

Because Defendant did not “purposefully avail[] himself of the benefits and protections of the forum
state by establishing minimum contacts with the forum state,” the Court need not decide whether
exercising jurisdiction over Defendant offends traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.
See Clemens, 615 F.3d at 378. The Court may not exercise specific jurisdiction over Defendant
because Defendant has not established the requisite minimum contacts, and exercising personal
jurisdiction over Defendant would therefore offend due process. See Pervasive Software, 688 F.3d at
220; Clemens, 615 F.3d at 379. Accordingly, Plaintiff’s claims against Defendant must be dismissed.
III.

CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the Motion to Dismiss, ECF No. 9, is GRANTED, and the case is

DISMISSED.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Motion for Declaratory Judgment, ECF No.
11, is DENIED as moot.
SO ORDERED.
SIGNED this 18th day of June, 2016.

KATHLEEN CARDONE
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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