Contacts Insufficient for Long-Arm Jurisdiction

The Third Department upheld the trial court’s determination that plaintiff’s business-related contacts with out-of-state defendants were insufficient to confer New York jurisdiction over them:

Plaintiff entered into a three-month agreement with defendant Yodle, Inc. to conduct an Internet advertising campaign for his divorce document preparation business. Three weeks after agreeing to the terms of the contract, plaintiff emailed defendant Brad Leitch, a Yodle employee who lives and works in North Carolina, and stated that he could not afford to proceed due to unanticipated personal expenses. Relying on the terms of the contract, Yodle refused to refund plaintiff any money and continued the advertising campaign until – just before the end of the three-month term – plaintiff commenced this action seeking to recover damages for, among other things, fraud and breach of contract.

* * *Initially, we cannot agree with plaintiff’s contention that Supreme Court erred in determining that it lacked jurisdiction over Leitch and Long [another Yodle employee who lives and works in Arizona]. Given the nature of their work on plaintiff’s Internet advertising campaign and his limited contact with them via telephone and email, their conduct “did not amount to a purposeful invocation of the privileges of conducting business in New York” so as to confer personal jurisdiction under CPLR 302 (a) (1) … . Collins … v Yodle, Inc…, 514827, 3rd Dept 4-11-13