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Web Activity Enough for Discovery

By Shannon P. Duffy
October 02, 2003

Even if a Web site is both commercial and interactive, a court cannot exercise jurisdiction over its operator unless there is also proof that the company has 'purposefully availed' itself of doing business in that state, a federal appeals court has ruled.

But in a key victory for plaintiffs, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also held that judges must be willing to consider the defendant's non-Internet activities 'as part of the 'purposeful availment' calculus' and that sometimes a plaintiff must be given a chance to build just such a case for jurisdiction.

In Toys 'R' Us v. Step Two SA, a unanimous three-judge panel found that U.S. District Judge Katharine S. Hayden erred when she denied the plaintiff's request for jurisdictional discovery.

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