Plaintiff James Tripp had filed a lawsuit against defendant Ascentage Pharma Group International, alleging various employment related claims. The issue in the federal court case, Tripp v. Ascentage Pharma Grp. Int’l, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 147949 (D.N.J. Aug. 23, 2023), was whether the court had specific personal jurisdiction over an employer by virtue of their employment of remote workers in the forum state.
The employee was a resident of New Jersey, and the employer was incorporated in Delaware with its principal place of business in Maryland. The Chief Executive Officer of Ascentage primarily resided in China, with his principal United States residence in Maryland. The employee filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. The company sought dismissal of the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction.
In New Jersey, courts can exercise personal jurisdiction over a non-resident defendant if the defendant has, “certain minimum contacts with the state such that the maintenance of the suit does not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.” Int’l Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 316 (1945). A district court may exercise either general or specific personal jurisdiction. Here, the employee did not assert general personal jurisdiction over the defendant. Therefore, the court had to determine whether it had specific personal jurisdiction over the defendant company.
To determine whether the court has specific personal jurisdiction over the employer, the court considered if, apart from the fact that the employee worked remotely from New Jersey, there were facts to show that the company engaged in any activities in New Jersey that related to the employee’s claims. Under O’Connor v. Sandy Lane Hotel Co. Ltd., 496 F.3d 312 (3d Cir. 2007), specific personal jurisdiction could only be established if: (1) the defendant purposefully directed its activities at the forum; (2) the litigation arose out of or relates to defendant’s in-state activity; and (3) the exercise of personal jurisdiction comports with traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.
In Tripp, the court concluded that an employee who works remotely from a home office does not automatically subject his employer to the jurisdiction of his home state. To determine personal jurisdiction, the court considered that the employee worked remotely from his home in New Jersey, collected New Jersey unemployment, received office equipment from the company, and stored business documents in his home. However, the court found that these actions relate to the plaintiff’s own presence in New Jersey, but do not show that the company directed its activities at New Jersey.
Additionally, the court noted that merely because an employer has remote employees in a state does not indicate that the employer purposefully targeted that state. To decide whether the employer targeted the state, the court would need information on the nature of work that remote employees did for the employer.
In Tripp, the court found that the employer did not own any property in New Jersey and never conducted a clinical trial there. In fact, even though the employee alleged that the company sought to utilize his physical location in New Jersey to contact potential investors in New York, the court found that the employer did not present evidence to show that he did make these contacts.
The court concluded that the company did not purposefully direct its activities to New Jersey, and it was only the employee’s location in New Jersey which connected the dispute to New Jersey. Therefore, the court concluded that it did not have specific personal jurisdiction over the employee’s claims and transferred the case to Maryland because it was the company’s principal place of business.