TOM S. LEE, District Judge.
This cause is before the court on the motion of defendant Daniel G. Skrip to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction pursuant to Rule 12(b)(5) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Plaintiff Robert (Rob) Lucas Thomas, individually and as next friend and natural guardian of minors R.L.T., H.H.T., C.S.T., A.C.T. and S.H.T., has responded to the motion and the court, having considered the memoranda of authorities, together with attachments, submitted by the parties, concludes that defendant's motion should be denied.
Plaintiff Rob Thomas, a resident of Jackson, Mississippi, filed this action against defendant Daniel G. Skrip, a resident of Boston, Massachusetts, alleging that Skrip engaged in a relationship with plaintiff's wife, Denise Lynn Thomas, which resulted in the alienation of Denise's affections toward plaintiff. The complaint alleges (and it is not disputed) that on February 4, 2011, while on a trip to New Orleans with friends, Denise Thomas met defendant Skrip in the lobby of the hotel
A federal court sitting in diversity may exercise personal jurisdiction only to the extent allowed by a state court under applicable state law. Allred v. Moore & Peterson, 117 F.3d 278, 281 (5th Cir.1997), cert. denied, 522 U.S. 1048, 118 S.Ct. 691, 139 L.Ed.2d 637 (1998). "A state court or a federal court sitting in diversity may assert jurisdiction if: (1) the state's long-arm statute applies, as interpreted by the state's courts; and (2) if due process is satisfied under the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution." Id. at 281 (quoting Cycles, Ltd. v. W.J. Digby, Inc., 889 F.2d 612, 616 (5th Cir.1989)). It is the plaintiff's burden to establish jurisdiction. Guidry v. U.S. Tobacco Co., 188 F.3d 619, 625 (5th Cir.1999).
As is pertinent to this case, Mississippi's long-arm statute confers personal jurisdiction over "[a]ny nonresident person... who shall commit a tort in whole or in part in this state against a resident or nonresident of this state...." Miss.Code Ann. § 13-3-57.
The Mississippi Supreme Court has summarized the tort of alienation of affections, stating that "where a husband is wrongfully deprived of his rights to the `services and companionship and consortium of his wife,' he has a cause of action `against the one who has interfered with his domestic relations.' ... The husband might then sue for ... alienation of affections.
Defendant argues in response that all of his alleged wrongful conduct, consisting of electronic and telephonic communications with Denise Thomas that are alleged to have lured her from the marital relationship, originated from outside the state of Mississippi, see Fitch v. Valentine, 959 So.2d 1012, 1025 (Miss.2007) (explaining that "persuasion, enticement, or inducement which causes or contributes to the abandonment is a necessary component of `wrongful conduct'" element); and he submits that while plaintiff may have felt the consequences of this alleged tortious conduct in the state of Mississippi, the actual injury occurred elsewhere. See Jobe, 87 F.3d at 753 (explaining that "[i]n determining where the injury occurred for jurisdictional purposes, actual injury must be distinguished from its resultant consequences," since "consequences stemming from the actual tort injury do not confer personal jurisdiction at the site or sites where such consequences happen to occur"). In the court's opinion, defendant's position is foreclosed by Knight v. Woodfield, 50 So.3d 995 (Miss.2011).
In Knight, the Mississippi Supreme Court, confronted with essentially the same scenario as here, held that the plaintiff's allegations that the defendant's texting,
As in Knight, the issue in Bailey v. Stanford, Civil No. 3:11-cv-00040-NBB-SSA, 2012 WL 569020, *1 (N.D.Miss. Feb. 21, 2012), was likewise whether the plaintiff had established a basis for personal jurisdiction over a nonresident paramour who did not have a physical presence within Mississippi prior to the time the plaintiff's husband abandoned his marital home but where the plaintiff presented evidence that the defendant engaged in interstate calls and text messages of a sexual, amorous and affectionate nature with plaintiff's then-husband while he was married to the plaintiff and living in their marital home in Mississippi. 2012 WL 569020, at *2. And as in Knight, the court concluded there was personal jurisdiction since "the alleged injury, the breakup of the Baileys' marriage, occurred in Mississippi." Knight, 50 So.3d at 997-98. See also Cooper v. Shealy, 140 N.C. App. 729, 537 S.E.2d 854, 856 (N.C.Ct.App.2000) (finding North Carolina's long-arm statute authorized personal jurisdiction since plaintiff's injury, the destruction of her husband's love and affection, occurred within the state and was allegedly caused by defendant's solicitations via emails and telephone calls to plaintiff's home in the state). Clearly, the injury to plaintiff herein is his wife's leaving the marital relationship, which occurred in Mississippi, allegedly as a result of defendant's persuasion, inducement and enticement. Jurisdiction is thus proper under the long-arm statute.
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment serves to limit the power of a state to assert personal jurisdiction over a nonresident. Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia, S.A. v. Hall, 466 U.S. 408, 413-14, 104 S.Ct. 1868, 80 L.Ed.2d 404 (1984). The Due Process Clause "requires satisfaction of a two-prong test in order for a federal court to properly exercise jurisdiction: (1) the nonresident must have minimum contacts with the forum state, and (2) subjecting the nonresident to jurisdiction must be consistent with `traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.'" Freudensprung v. Offshore Technical Servs., Inc., 379 F.3d 327, 343 (5th Cir.2004) (citing Asarco, Inc. v. Glenara, Ltd., 912 F.2d 784 (5th. Cir. 1990), and International Shoe Co. v. Washington,
Id. (citations omitted). See also Trinity Indus., Inc. v. Myers & Assocs., Ltd., 41 F.3d 229, 231 (5th Cir.1995)("[A]n individual who purposefully directs his activities to forum state residents and derives benefits therefrom should be answerable in the forum for the consequences of his activities; `the Due Process Clause may not readily be wielded as a territorial shield to avoid interstate obligations that have been voluntarily assumed.'"), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 807, 116 S.Ct. 52, 133 L.Ed.2d 17 (1995); Bailey, 2012 WL 569020, at *5 ("`Although personal jurisdiction does not lie when the defendant cannot control vulnerability to suit,' it does lie where the defendant assumed and continued his contacts with the forum state.") (quoting Trinity Indus., 41 F.3d at 231).
In Bailey, the court concluded that since the "defendant initiated contacts to Mississippi, and ... frequently responded to contacts initiated by [the plaintiff's husband] (some of them from Mississippi) [as] part of ongoing communication with [her husband]" and such contacts "were not `random, fortuitous,' `attenuated,' or the result of unilateral activity of a third party," and since "[t]he defendant knew at the time that she initiated these contacts that [the plaintiff's husband] was married to the plaintiff, a Mississippi resident," then "[t]he alleged injurious effects of her communications with [the plaintiff's wife] on the plaintiff were foreseeable." Id. "As such, the defendant could reasonably anticipate being haled into court in Mississippi in an action that relate[d] to her contacts with the forum." Id. (citing Latshaw v. Johnston, 167 F.3d 208, 213 (5th Cir. 1999)).
Skrip suggests that he cannot be found to have purposefully directed his activities at Mississippi since he did not know when he sent the emails and text messages and made the phone calls to Denise Thomas that she was physically located in Mississippi. On this point, his argument is two-fold. First he suggests that he did not actually know that Denise Thomas lived in Mississippi; he only understood from what she told him that she lived in Mississippi. This is nonsense. It is undeniably clear from the record evidence that defendant fully believed Denise Thomas when she told him she lived in Mississippi.
He next argues that in light of the mobile nature of the technology involved in electronic communications via email, text or cell phone, it cannot fairly be said that he directed his activities toward Mississippi rather than toward a resident of Mississippi, who need not have been present in Mississippi to receive his various communications. See Dunn v. Yager, 58 So.3d 1171, 1186 (Miss.2011) (emphasizing that minimum contacts "must be between the defendant and the forum state, not simply between the defendant and a resident of the forum state") (citing Admin. of Tulane Educ. Fund v. Cooley, 462 So.2d 696, 703 (Miss.1984)). Defendant notes that Mrs. Thomas's access to her cell phone, text messages and email were not in any way bound to Mississippi; she could have accessed them from anywhere she happened to be, and he submits that the fact that his communications were largely accessed by Mrs. Thomas in Mississippi is merely fortuitous. The court is unpersuaded. While the court has not been provided with the full text of the emails between Skrip and Mrs. Thomas during the relevant time frame,
In light of his numerous calls, texts and emails to Denise Thomas in Mississippi, the court readily concludes that Skrip had the requisite minimum contacts to satisfy the requirements of due process in this court's exercise of personal jurisdiction,
The court in Bailey, considering the fairness factors, stated the following:
Bailey, 2012 WL 569020, at *8. These observations apply equally in this case. Especially given Mississippi's determination to retain a cause of action for alienation of affections, Mississippi has an interest in protecting its residents' rights in their marital relationships and providing them a convenient forum for redress. Plaintiff has an interest in securing relief as quickly and as efficiently as possible, and there is no basis for concluding that efficient resolution of the case would be disserved by resolution in Mississippi. Defendant's generalized difficulty in traveling to Mississippi is not a burden violative of due process. See McFadin, 587 F.3d at 764.
Accordingly, based on all of the foregoing, the court finds that the court may properly exercises personal jurisdiction over Skrip with respect to plaintiff's tort claims.
Therefore, it is ordered that defendant's motion to dismiss is denied.
Miss.Code Ann. § 13-3-57. Only the tort prong is implicated in this case.
Defendant acknowledges that if the court concludes that Knight is not distinguishable, then it is binding on this court on the issue whether the long-arm statute is satisfied (though not on the federal due process issue). See Allred v. Moore & Peterson, 117 F.3d 278, 281 (5th Cir. 1997) (federal court applies state's long-arm statute "as interpreted by the state's courts"), cert. denied, 522 U.S. 1048, 118 S.Ct. 691, 139 L.Ed.2d 637 (1998).