The Disfavored Defense and the Tag-Along Defendant
Priya, a citizen of State A, sues Deltron Industries, a State B corporation with its principal place of business in State B, in federal district court in State A. Her complaint pleads a state-law breach-of-contract claim for $120,000 and, in the same action, a state-law fraud claim for $40,000 against Cobalt LLC, a State A company that allegedly supplied the defective components; both claims arise from the same 2022 purchase and installation. Deltron's first filing is a motion under Rules 12(b)(3) and 12(b)(6), which the court denies. Deltron then answers, raising lack of personal jurisdiction for the first time; its only contacts with State A are three isolated shipments totaling $8,000 in 2021. Cobalt moves to dismiss the fraud claim, arguing that the court lacks jurisdiction over it.
1. Did Deltron waive its personal jurisdiction defense? Work through Rules 12(g) and 12(h)(1), and identify whether any exception rescues the defense.
Read the worked answer
Yes-the defense is waived.
- Rule 12(b)(2) defenses are disfavored and must be raised in the first responsive pleading or in a pre-answer motion. Rule 12(g)(2) requires a party who makes a pre-answer motion to raise every defense then available in that single motion.
- Deltron's first filing was a Rule 12 motion asserting improper venue and failure to state a claim. Personal jurisdiction was available at that moment; it went unmentioned.
- Rule 12(h)(1)(A) states that a party waives a 12(b)(2)–(5) defense by omitting it from a motion filed under Rule 12. Pleading it in the answer after the motion was denied comes too late, and the same would be true if Deltron had raised venue in its answer instead of its motion.
- The only non-waivable defect is subject matter jurisdiction under Rule 12(h)(3). Nothing in the rule allows a court to revive a waived personal jurisdiction objection.
Key judgment call: the weakness of Deltron's forum contacts is beside the point. A waived defense is waived no matter how strong it would have been; a court may raise the issue on its own initiative, but Deltron cannot demand that.
2. Assume instead that Deltron had raised personal jurisdiction in its first motion. Should the court dismiss on that ground? Analyze general and specific jurisdiction.
Read the worked answer
General jurisdiction fails. Deltron is incorporated in State B with its principal place of business there; it is not 'at home' in State A. The three shipments do not approach the sort of continuous, systematic activity that would make it essentially at home.
Specific jurisdiction also fails on these facts. Two requirements must be satisfied:
- Purposeful availment. Three isolated shipments worth $8,000 to a single customer do not show that Deltron deliberately reached into the State A market. Foreseeability that goods will end up in a state is not availment; there are no offices, employees, agents, advertising, or forum-directed negotiations.
- Relatedness. The claim concerns a 2022 purchase and installation; the only contacts identified are 2021 shipments. Even a generous reading of 'arises out of' is strained.
Contrast that would flip the result: regular monthly deliveries into State A, a contract negotiated with a State A buyer, or a service contract performed in the forum would support purposeful availment, and a claim arising from that very relationship would satisfy relatedness. On these sparse facts, dismissal would have been proper-but Deltron lost that argument by waiver.
3. May the court exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Priya's fraud claim against Cobalt? Analyze 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a) and (b).
Read the worked answer
It clears § 1367(a) but is barred by § 1367(b).
- § 1367(a): The fraud claim and the contract claim arise from the same 2022 purchase and installation, so they form one constitutional 'case or controversy'-a common nucleus of operative fact. The threshold for supplemental jurisdiction is met.
- § 1367(b): In an action where jurisdiction rests solely on § 1332, the court may not exercise supplemental jurisdiction over claims by plaintiffs against persons made parties under Rules 14, 19, 20, or 24, or over claims by plaintiffs seeking to intervene under Rule 24, when doing so would be inconsistent with the diversity requirements.
Cobalt was joined as a co-defendant under Rule 20. Priya's fraud claim is a claim by a plaintiff against a Rule 20 party, and it destroys complete diversity (State A v. State A) while independently falling short of the amount in controversy ($40,000). Section 1367(b) therefore requires dismissal of that claim.
Watch the edges: if Cobalt had asserted its own claim against Priya, or had been joined under Rule 19 rather than Rule 20, the analysis would change. And if supplemental jurisdiction were available, § 1367(c) would still leave dismissal discretionary.