Nichols v. Guidetoinsure, LLC

Background

Terri Lee Nichols brought a proposed class action against Guidetoinsure, LLC. She alleged that Guidetoinsure unlawfully telemarketed insurance services by making prerecorded robocalls and calling numbers listed on the National Do Not Call Registry. Nichols alleged that Guidetoinsure called her four times in 2022, on April 26, May 2, May 6, and May 12. She asserted claims under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and sought injunctive relief, treble statutory damages, and certification of two proposed classes: a Robocall Class and a National Do Not Call Registry Class.

Guidetoinsure moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and failure to state a claim. It argued that Nichols’s contact information had been submitted through an online form and that the form provided a phone number with a Virginia area code. Guidetoinsure said it understood that Nichols had consented to the calls, did not know she was a California resident, and did not direct conduct at California.

Personal Jurisdiction Standards

Personal jurisdiction is a court’s authority to exercise power over a defendant. The court explained that due process requires a defendant to have sufficient “minimum contacts” with the forum state so that exercising jurisdiction is consistent with fair treatment.

General jurisdiction allows a court to hear all claims against a defendant when the defendant’s connections with the state are so continuous and substantial that the defendant is essentially based there. Specific jurisdiction is narrower and applies only to claims connected to the defendant’s activities directed at the forum state. For the type of claims Nichols asserted, the court applied a test asking whether Guidetoinsure intentionally acted, expressly aimed its conduct at California, and caused harm it knew was likely to occur in California. Nichols had the burden of showing that personal jurisdiction was proper.

Analysis

The court concluded that general jurisdiction was unavailable. Guidetoinsure was incorporated in Utah and had its principal place of business there. It was not registered to do business in California and had no offices, managers, property, assets, or bank accounts there. Those contacts were not sufficiently continuous and systematic to make Guidetoinsure essentially based in California.

The court also concluded that specific jurisdiction was unavailable. The evidence showed that Guidetoinsure received contact information submitted through an online form in November 2021 and that the information included a Virginia-area-code phone number. The court found that Nichols could not establish that Guidetoinsure targeted advertising at her in California or knew she was a California resident when it made the calls.

Nichols argued that Guidetoinsure knew or should have known she was in California because the online-form record included a California IP address. Guidetoinsure provided evidence that it never received that information because the related metadata was stored in an encrypted database. Nichols did not rebut that evidence. The court therefore found that Guidetoinsure made calls to a non-California number and was unaware of the California IP address, so it had not expressly aimed conduct at California or known that harm was likely to occur there.

The court noted that the parties disputed whether Nichols herself submitted her information through the online form and consented to the calls. It did not resolve that dispute because, even if someone else submitted the information, Guidetoinsure knew only about the Virginia-area-code number and therefore would not have known from the provided information that Nichols was in California.

Disposition

Judge P. Casey Fitts granted Guidetoinsure’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and dismissed the case. The opinion did not decide whether Guidetoinsure violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act or whether Nichols stated a claim under that statute.