Koegel v. BAUGUR GROUP, HF , 238 F. App'x 5 ( 2007 )

United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
F I L E D
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
May 15, 2007
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT Charles R. Fulbruge III
Clerk
_______________________
No. 06-60255
_______________________
JACK KOEGEL; WILLIAM FIELDS,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
versus
BAUGUR GROUP, HF; JON ASGEIR JOHANNESSON;
JOHANNES JONSSON; JOHN DOES,
Defendants-Appellees.
__________________________________________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Mississippi
(USDC No. 3:04-CV-29-HTW-JCS)
__________________________________________________________
Before REAVLEY, GARZA, and DENNIS, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:*
Jack Koegel and William Fields appeal the district court’s dismissal for want of
personal jurisdiction of their lawsuit against an Icelandic business entity, Bauger Group, HF
*
Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the Court has determined that this opinion should not be
published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R.
47.5.4.
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(“Bauger”), and several individual Icelanders. We affirm for the following reasons:
1. The only claim before us is fraud based on misrepresentations that Bauger and
its employees allegedly made to induce Koegel and Fields to take part in the
Bonus Stores business venture. The district court found that it had personal
jurisdiction over Koegel’s fraud claim for alleged misrepresentations that
occurred after he had moved to Mississippi, but the plaintiffs-appellants
voluntarily dismissed that claim. And the plaintiffs-appellants have not
appealed the district court’s dismissal of their contract claims.
2. No part of the alleged tort that is before us occurred in Mississippi, so the tort
prong of Mississippi's long-arm statute, Miss. Code Ann. § 13-3-57, provides
no basis for personal jurisdiction. In determining the site of an injury for
jurisdictional purposes, we distinguish the actual injury from “its resultant
consequences, such as . . . economic effects or other collateral consequences
that often stem from the actual injury.” Jobe v. ATR Mktg., Inc., 87 F.3d 751,
753 (5th Cir. 1996) (interpreting Mississippi law). We have recognized that
“such collateral consequences may be far-reaching[,] particularly in a
commercial tort situation [,]” and they do not confer jurisdiction where they
occur. Id. The law of Mississippi is that “ ‘not every spoken untruth is
actionable as a fraud. It is only if that untruth was designed to, and did, in
fact, induce the hearer to change his position in justifiable reliance on the
untruth that it becomes potentially actionable.’ ” Lacy v. Morrison, 906 So.
22d 126, 130 (Miss. Ct. App. 2004) (quoting McGee v. Swarek, 733 So. 2d 308,
312 (Miss. Ct. App. 1998)). So, under Mississippi law and our opinion in
Jobe, the actionable injury in this case must be the plaintiffs-appellants’
change of position, if any, in justifiable reliance on the representations that
Baugur made. Koegel’s detrimental reliance is clear: he terminated his
employment with the New Jersey retailer. But that injury did not occur in
Mississippi. And Fields has not alleged how he suffered any tortious injury
in Mississippi.
3. Because Mississippi’s long-arm statute does not provide a jurisdictional base,
we do not conduct a minimum-contacts analysis.
AFFIRMED.
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