No Jurisdiction in Federal Court Over Saudi Activist’s Claims Against Alleged Hackers for UAE Government
From Alhathloul v. Darkmatter Group, decided today by Judge Karin Immergut (D. Or.) for the pointer:
Plaintiff {a Saudi human rights activist and leader of the movement to promote the rights of women and girls in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia} brings three federal claims against Defendants, based on allegations that Defendants hacked Plaintiff’s iPhone, surveilled her movements, and exfiltrated her confidential communications for use against her by the security services of the United Arab Emirates (“UAE”). According to Plaintiff, Defendants’ actions led to her arrest by the UAE security services and rendition to Saudi Arabia, where Plaintiff states that she was detained, imprisoned, and tortured. Plaintiff’s allegations of political retaliation and torture are highly concerning. Nevertheless, this Court is bound by jurisdictional limits and grants Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction….
Defendants argue Plaintiff alleges no jurisdictionally significant connection between Defendants, the present litigation, and the United States, save for the fact that certain text messages allegedly sent by Defendant DarkMatter from a foreign location passed through U.S. servers on their way to Plaintiff’s phone abroad. Plaintiff counters that Defendants contacts with the United States are jurisdictionally significant because Defendants caused Apple’s U.S. servers to transmit malicious code to Plaintiff’s phone.
For the following reasons, this Court concludes that it cannot exercise personal jurisdiction over Defendants….
If this Court were to base its determination of where the tortious conduct took place on the location where the Defendants sent the message, that location would be outside of the forum. Conversely, if this Court were to base its determination of where the tortious conduct took place on the location “that contain[ed] the hardware manipulated by the defendant to commit the tort,” that location would also be outside of the forum, because the “computer … manipulated … to commit the tort” was Plaintiff’s phone, not Appl
Article from Reason.com
