## Facts

- Janice and Robert Decker, New Jersey residents, sued Circus Circus Hotel for negligence arising from an alleged dangerous condition at the hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
- Circus Circus Hotel was a Nevada corporation with its only place of business in Las Vegas.
- The alleged injury occurred in Nevada; the claim did not involve conduct occurring in New Jersey.
- Circus Circus had no offices, agents, property, bank accounts, or tax payments in New Jersey and had no plans to do business there.
- Plaintiffs asserted New Jersey jurisdiction based on: corporate affiliations with entities doing business in New Jersey; an interactive reservations website accessible in New Jersey; national advertising reaching New Jersey; and promotional mailings sent to some New Jersey residents.
- Plaintiffs filed in New Jersey state court; the defendant removed to federal court and moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and improper venue, or alternatively to transfer to the District of Nevada.

## Issues

1. Whether a New Jersey federal court could exercise personal jurisdiction over a Nevada hotel for a Nevada premises-liability injury based on corporate affiliations, an interactive website, national advertising, and limited mailings reaching New Jersey.
2. If personal jurisdiction and/or venue were improper in New Jersey, whether the action should be dismissed or transferred to the District of Nevada.

## Decision

- The court held it lacked personal jurisdiction over Circus Circus in New Jersey.
- The court found neither general jurisdiction (no continuous and systematic contacts with New Jersey) nor specific jurisdiction (the claim did not arise out of New Jersey-directed contacts).
- Rather than dismiss, the court transferred the action to the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada under 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a).

## Legal Principles

- A federal court’s personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant is coextensive with the forum state’s long-arm rule; New Jersey’s rule reaches to the limits of Fourteenth Amendment due process.
- Due process requires minimum contacts showing purposeful availment, such that exercising jurisdiction accords with traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.
- General jurisdiction requires contacts so continuous and systematic that the defendant is essentially at home in the forum.
- Specific jurisdiction requires a sufficient connection between the defendant’s forum-directed conduct and the plaintiff’s cause of action (“arise out of or relate to”).
- An interactive website and nationwide advertising, without forum-specific targeting and without a connection between those contacts and the tort claim, are insufficient to establish specific jurisdiction for an out-of-state premises injury.
- Corporate relationships with entities doing business in the forum do not, without a basis to disregard corporate separateness, supply minimum contacts for an affiliated defendant.
- When an action is filed in the wrong district, a court may transfer it in the interest of justice to a district where it could have been brought under 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a).

## Conclusion

The court declined to exercise personal jurisdiction in New Jersey over a Nevada hotel for a Nevada premises-liability claim, rejecting jurisdiction based on an interactive reservations website, broad advertising, limited mailings, and corporate affiliations, and transferred the case to the District of Nevada under § 1406(a) in the interest of justice.


Decker v. Circus Circus Hotel, 49 F. Supp. 2d 743 (D.N.J. 1999)