A judge has ruled that a Massachusetts resident can sue a U.K.-based online bike store in federal court.
The Massachusetts plaintiff, James Sheldon, allegedly purchased a ratchet wheel mounting system (RWS) online from Merlin Cycles, Ltd., a foreign corporation headquartered in Britain.
Sheldon claims that he was seriously injured when the RWS broke suddenly while he was riding his bike in Connecticut. He filed a lawsuit against Merlin Cycles. The U.K. company filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The motion argued that U.S. courts did not have jurisdiction over the foreign business.
The parties engaged in “jurisdictional discovery” which proved:
(1) Merlin sent a high volume of marketing and promotional emails to one of Sheldon’s email addresses, which was associated with a billing address in Massachusetts; (2) although Merlin engaged in this marketing only after Sheldon created an account on Merlin’s website, Merlin then automatically sent those marketing emails to Sheldon pursuant to its pre-2018 account settings; (3) Merlin sent Sheldon an advertisement for the RWS system at issue in this case to the email address subscribed to Merlin’s marketing emails; (4) Sheldon purchased the RWS after receiving that email, using a different email address, but which also had a Massachusetts billing address; (5) the purportedly defective product was shipped to Sheldon in Massachusetts; and (6) Merlin does a significant volume of sales in Massachusetts.
The judge ultimately concluded that Merlin had sufficiently “availed” itself of Massachusetts and, consequently, U.S. jurisdiction was proper:
Though a close call, the court finds that Merlin did purposefully avail itself of Massachusetts. Merlin conducts “a continuous and systematic, but limited, part of its general business” in Massachusetts, and this is sufficient to support jurisdiction where, as here, “the cause of action arises out of the very activity being conducted,” in this case, the sale of bicycle parts. Keeton v. Hustler Magazine, Inc., 465 U.S. 770, 779-80 (1984).
The full text of the 19-page memorandum & order is attached below.