## Facts

- Missouri plaintiffs operated “Whispering Lane Kennel” near Ava, Missouri, breeding, selling, and showing Chinese Crested dogs and providing related services for pay.
- Defendants, residents of Arizona and Pennsylvania, competed with plaintiffs in the same dog-breeding and dog-show market.
- Plaintiffs alleged defendants created and maintained a website, www.stop-whisperinglane.com, to publish defamatory statements intended to harm plaintiffs and their Missouri-based kennel business.
- The website’s title and content identified the kennel and owners and expressly located the kennel in Ava, Missouri.
- The website was publicly accessible and was discoverable through internet searches for the kennel; it received roughly 2,500 visits in one year, including approximately 25 visits from Missouri.
- Plaintiffs filed suit in Missouri alleging libel and related torts based on the website’s publications.
- The trial court found the petition sufficiently alleged a tortious act in Missouri for long-arm purposes but dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction, concluding defendants lacked minimum contacts under due process.
- Plaintiffs appealed, arguing Missouri had specific jurisdiction because defendants intentionally directed internet defamation at Missouri, satisfying the “effects” test.

## Issues

1. Whether Missouri courts may exercise specific personal jurisdiction over nonresident defendants accused of internet libel when the website expressly targets Missouri plaintiffs and their Missouri business and the alleged harm is centered in Missouri.

## Decision

- The appellate court reversed the dismissal and remanded.
- It held Missouri could exercise specific personal jurisdiction over both defendants.
- Applying the intentional-tort “effects” test, the court concluded defendants expressly aimed the challenged conduct at Missouri and knew the brunt of the harm would be felt there.
- The court found jurisdiction consistent with fair play and substantial justice given defendants’ deliberate targeting of Missouri residents and Missouri’s interest in providing a forum for in-state injury.

## Legal Principles

- Specific jurisdiction may be based on an intentional tort committed outside the forum when the defendant’s conduct is expressly aimed at the forum and the defendant knows the injury will be primarily suffered there (the “effects” test).
- For internet defamation, qualitative evidence of purposeful direction toward the forum (targeting a forum resident, forum-based business, and forum-centered harm) can establish minimum contacts even if quantitative in-forum web traffic is limited.
- A defendant need not be physically present in the forum to create minimum contacts if the defendant intentionally directs allegedly tortious online conduct at the forum such that being sued there is reasonably foreseeable.
- After purposeful direction is shown, exercising jurisdiction must still comport with traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice, including the forum’s interest in adjudicating injury to its residents.

## Conclusion

The court held that nonresident defendants who allegedly operated a website to defame a Missouri kennel and its owners created sufficient forum-directed contacts under the intentional-tort effects test to support specific personal jurisdiction in Missouri, requiring reversal of the trial court’s dismissal and remand for further proceedings.


Baldwin v. Fischer-Smith, 315 S.W.3d 389 (Mo. Ct. App. 2010)