MacDermid, Inc. v. Deiter, No. 11-5388 (2d Cir. December 26, 2012)
The Second Circuit reversed a District Court that held it could not exercise personal jurisdiction over a Canadian defendant accused of accessing email servers located in Connecticut.
Defendant lived and worked in Canada for a U.S.-based company having its principal place of business in Connecticut. She knew her company’s email servers were located in Connecticut.
When she learned that she was about to be terminated from her position, she forwarded confidential company data from her work email account to her personal account.
The former employer sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut. That court dismissed the case, holding that the relevant Connecticut state statute (Conn. Gen. Stat. ยง 52-59b(a)) did not authorize the exercise of personal jurisdiction. The lower court found that although the statute authorized personal jurisdiction over one who “uses a computer” in the state, defendant’s alleged computer use took place exclusively in Canada.
Plaintiff-employer sought review with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. On appeal, the court reversed, holding that the state statute authorized the exercise of personal jurisdiction, and that such exercise comported with due process.
The court found it was “not material” that defendant was outside Connecticut when she accessed her employer’s servers. It held that the statute required only that the computer or network, not the user, be located in the state.
On the due process issue, the court found that defendant had minimum contacts with Connecticut, as she knew the servers were located there. The court also found that she purposefully directed her alleged tortious activity there. After balancing other relevant factors (e.g., location of witnesses, burden on the defendant, Connecticut’s interests in seeing its laws enforced), the court found the exercise of personal jurisdiction to be reasonable.