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Williams v. Lakeview Co.11/9/2000
isdiction, even when the plaintiff went to the hotel solely because she received the hotel's promotional brochure); Westphal v. Mace, 671 F. Supp. 665, 667-68 (D. Ariz. 1987) (rejecting the argument that the dependency of a Nevada casino on Arizona residents and its continuous advertisements in the forum state are sufficient to confer jurisdiction because there was no nexus between the injury and the contacts and because the plaintiff merely felt the effect of the injury in the forum state); Erickson v. Spore, 618 F. Supp. 1356, 1359-60 (D. Minn. 1985) (finding personal jurisdiction was lacking when the plaintiff never saw or heard any of the defendant's advertising in the forum state and when his decision to go to the defendant's business was not related to the advertising); Mozdy v. Lopez, 494 N.W.2d 866, 868-69 (Mich. App. 1992) (holding that advertisements in the forum state were an insufficient basis for personal jurisdiction when the advertisements had no causal connection to the injury). We believe the better-reasoned cases are those which require a causal nexus between the defendant's solicitation activities and the plaintiff's claims, a requirement we conclude the Due Process Clause imposes. The plaintiffs also argue that we should assert jurisdiction because Lakeview should have foreseen that one of its Arizona patrons might consume alcohol to excess, cross the state line, and become involved in an accident. Foreseeability, however, does not confer jurisdiction. In Burger King, the Supreme Court specifically rejected this argument: "Although it has been argued that foreseeability of causing injury in another State should be sufficient to establish such contacts there . . ., the Court has consistently held that this kind of foreseeability is not a 'sufficient benchmark' for exercising personal jurisdiction." Burger King, 471 U.S. at 474, 105 S. Ct. at 2183 (citing World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. at 295, 100 S. Ct. at 566) (emphasis in original). Foreseeability, relevant as it may be to the defendant's liability, cannot substitute for the required causal nexus between the defendant's contact with the forum state and an eventual injury.
C.
Although the plaintiffs do not argue that section 37 of the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws provides a basis upon which Arizona courts can rely in asserting personal jurisdiction over the defendants, the dissent finds that provision persuasive. Significantly, when Arizona's appellate courts handed down the two decisions cited by the dissent, the standards governing the exercise of specific jurisdiction by state courts were relatively unclear. After the dates of those Arizona decisions, the Supreme Court defined the appropriate analysis in decisions such as World-Wide Volkswagen v. Woodson, Helicopteros Nacionales de Columbia S.A. v. Hall, and Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, an analysis we necessarily adopted in Batton v. Tennessee Farmers Mut. Ins. Co. Had the plaintiffs filed this action in Nevada, the courts of that state might well have applied choice of law principles in a manner that would allow Arizona law to control this action. Those principles, however, determine which state's law should apply, not whether a particular state can exercise specific jurisdiction over a particular defendant.
D.
Our jurisdictional analysis must focus on the relationship among Lakeview, Arizona, and the plaintiffs' claim. In undertaking that analysis, we must bear in mind the following caution:
Even if the defendant would suffer minimal or no inconvenience from being forced to litigate before the tribunals of another State; even if the forum State has a strong interest in applying its law to the
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