No personal jurisdiction found in "worldwide" Internet advertising
A California appeals court decision, Shisler v. Sanford Sports Cars, was certified for publication today, holding that a used car dealer in Florida cannot be sued in California because it sold a car to a California resident after advertising it for sale "worldwide" on the Internet.
The plaintiff argued that the dealer sold cars to Californians and used the Internet to advertise cars for sale that it would ship "worldwide." However the court concluded that these passive Internet advertisements along with a small number of car sales to the state were insufficient to subject the dealer to jurisdiction in California.
In order to satisfy constitutional due process requirements, the dealer must have sufficient minimum contacts with California. This can be in the form of substantial ongoing contacts by the defendant with the state, for general jurisdiction, or in the form of contacts relating to the case where the defendant purposely directed his activities towards the state, for specific jurisdiction.
The court reviewed the sliding scale test for evaluating Internet activity for personal jurisdiciton purposes, adopted by the California Supreme Court in 2002 in the Pavlovich case:
"At one end of the spectrum are situations where a defendant clearly does business over the Internet. If the defendant enters into contracts with residents of a foreign jurisdiction that involve the knowing and repeated transmission of computer files over the Internet, personal jurisdiction is proper."
"At the opposite end are situations where a defendant has simply posted information on an Internet Web site which is accessible to users in foreign jurisdictions. A passive Web site that does little more than make information available to those who are interested in it is not grounds for the exercise [of] personal jurisdiction."
"The middle ground is occupied by interactive Web sites where a user can exchange information with the host computer. In these cases, the exercise of jurisdiction is determined by examining the level of interactivity and commercial nature of the exchange of information that occurs on the Web site."
Applying the sliding scale test to the facts of this case, the court concluded:
"In this case, defendant’s Web site merely advertised its vehicles and (presumably) included a credit application. There is no evidence that files were exchanged via the Web site or that any business was actually conducted via the site. . . . Nor is there evidence that anything about the Web site specifically targeted California residents. Thus, defendant’s maintenance of the Web site alone is insufficient to establish personal jurisdiction."
