## Facts

- Shippitsa Ltd., a U.K. company, manufactures and sells a dietary supplement branded “Phen375” through its website, phen375.com, and claims rights in the PHEN375 mark.
- Shippitsa used an affiliate-marketing system in which third-party websites posted links that sent users to Shippitsa’s sales page.
- Andrew Jon Slack, a U.K. resident, operated MoreNiche Ltd., a U.K. company associated with an affiliate-network website through which affiliates could place links to phen375.com.
- During Shippitsa’s relationship with MoreNiche, users could click an affiliate link on the MoreNiche network and reach phen375.com.
- After Shippitsa’s contract expired, Shippitsa alleged that the relevant links no longer led to phen375.com and instead routed users to mixi.mn, a webpage Slack operated.
- According to Shippitsa, the mixi.mn page stated Phen375 was no longer available through that link and then redirected users to another website selling an alternative weight-loss product.
- Shippitsa filed suit in the Northern District of Texas asserting federal claims including trademark infringement and dilution, false designation of origin, cybersquatting, and racketeering, and sought to proceed against Slack and MoreNiche despite their U.K. residence and incorporation.
- In an earlier decision in the same case, the court dismissed Slack and MoreNiche for lack of personal jurisdiction.
- Shippitsa then moved for reconsideration, arguing the court had made a manifest factual error in its minimum-contacts analysis and that the redirect operation (including automatic redirection of Texas users) supported specific personal jurisdiction.

## Issues

1. Whether Shippitsa showed grounds to reconsider the prior judgment dismissing Slack and MoreNiche for lack of personal jurisdiction (i.e., a manifest error of fact or law, or similar basis for relief).
2. Whether operating a mixi.mn redirect page accessible in Texas—and capable of redirecting Texas users to another seller—constituted purposeful forum-directed conduct sufficient for specific personal jurisdiction under the due process minimum-contacts standard.

## Decision

- The court denied Shippitsa’s motion for reconsideration.
- The court held Shippitsa did not identify a manifest error of fact (or other basis) that justified altering the prior dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction.
- The earlier dismissal of Slack and MoreNiche for lack of personal jurisdiction remained in effect.

## Legal Principles

- A motion to reconsider a judgment (commonly analyzed under Rule 59(e), and in some contexts Rule 54(b)) is not a vehicle to reargue matters already decided; relief generally requires a manifest error of law or fact, newly discovered evidence, or a comparable basis.
- For specific personal jurisdiction, due process requires minimum contacts showing the defendant purposefully directed suit-related conduct at the forum, such that the defendant could reasonably anticipate being haled into court there.
- In internet-based cases, courts often apply the Zippo sliding-scale approach, distinguishing between passive websites, clearly commercial/transactional websites, and intermediate sites where jurisdiction depends on the level of interactivity and commercial character.
- A forum-accessible webpage that functions mainly as a notice and redirect mechanism, without meaningful interaction or on-page commercial transactions, may be treated as insufficiently commercial or interactive to show purposeful direction toward the forum.
- Mere accessibility of a website in the forum (and the fact that forum residents can be routed elsewhere) does not, without additional forum-directed conduct, establish minimum contacts.

## Conclusion

The court denied Shippitsa’s request to reconsider the prior personal-jurisdiction dismissal, concluding Shippitsa had not shown a manifest factual (or legal) error in the earlier ruling that a largely noncommercial, minimally interactive redirect page accessible in Texas did not amount to purposeful Texas-directed contacts by the U.K. defendants.


Shippitsa Ltd. v. Slack, 2019 WL 2372687 (2019)