Doe v. Deutsche Lufthansa Aktiengesellschaft

Background

John Doe and Robert Roe alleged that they are a married gay couple who had lived together in Saudi Arabia for many years while keeping their relationship private. They booked separate Lufthansa round-trip tickets from Riyadh to San Francisco, with a layover in Frankfurt, Germany. At the Riyadh airport, a Lufthansa employee allegedly demanded that Roe identify his family relationship to Doe, publicly questioned their marriage, requested their passports, visa, and marriage certificate, and sent or arranged to send those documents to Lufthansa headquarters. The plaintiffs alleged that information about their marriage and sexual orientation was later transmitted to the Saudi Arabian government.

The complaint asserted five California-law claims: public disclosure of private facts, intentional infliction of emotional distress, breach of contract, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and loss of consortium under California Civil Code section 1431.2. The defendants were Deutsche Lufthansa Aktiengesellschaft, which operated the flights, and Lufthansa Group Business Services New York LLC, which allegedly provided business services, including information-technology services, for Lufthansa Aktiengesellschaft. The defendants removed the case from California state court based on diversity jurisdiction and federal-question jurisdiction related to possible preemption by the Montreal Convention.

Personal Jurisdiction Standard

The defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2) for lack of personal jurisdiction, or alternatively for judgment on the pleadings. Personal jurisdiction is a court’s authority over a defendant. The court explained that specific personal jurisdiction requires the plaintiff to show that the defendant deliberately engaged with the forum state, that the claim arises out of or relates to those forum activities, and that exercising jurisdiction would be reasonable.

Court’s Analysis

The court stated that the plaintiffs had shown that Lufthansa Aktiengesellschaft deliberately conducted business in California. The court did not decide whether the separate “purposeful direction” test also applied or was satisfied because it concluded that the plaintiffs failed the next requirement: showing that their claims arose out of or sufficiently related to the defendants’ California activities.

The court found that nearly all conduct central to the claims occurred in Saudi Arabia. The plaintiffs lived there when they bought the tickets, booked the flights from there, encountered the check-in problems there, and alleged that the disclosure of their marital status and sexual orientation occurred there. The court held that Doe’s connection to California, Roe’s relocation to California, and the fact that San Francisco was the flight’s destination were not enough by themselves.

The court also rejected the plaintiffs’ reliance on events in California, including an airline agent’s failure to arrange a promised follow-up call after the plaintiffs landed in San Francisco. The court concluded that this allegation was too weakly connected to the claims, whose central allegation was the mishandling of private information during check-in in Riyadh. As to LGBS, the court found that the plaintiffs’ argument that LGBS may have contributed through training, computer systems, or logistical support was too speculative and did not establish a basis for personal jurisdiction.

The court further held that exercising jurisdiction would be unreasonable even if the plaintiffs had satisfied the other requirements. It emphasized the case’s foreign-policy implications, the possible need to interpret European and German data-privacy laws, choice-of-law issues, and the difficulty of conducting discovery in Saudi Arabia and Germany.

Jurisdictional Discovery and Disposition

The plaintiffs requested jurisdictional discovery, which is information-gathering focused on whether the court has authority over the defendants. The court denied that request because the proposed discovery concerned the defendants’ general California contacts and would not strengthen the specific connection between those contacts and the plaintiffs’ claims.

The court granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. It did not address the defendants’ alternative arguments for dismissal. The court also directed the Clerk to unseal Docket Nos. 16-1 and 17-1 because the defendants had improperly filed those documents under seal.