Macey & Aleman suit over client theft dismissed
A federal judge in Illinois ruled last week that consumer bankruptcy giant Macey & Aleman couldn’t show personal jurisdiction in its lawsuit against an Arizona firm that allegedly took 220 of its clients.
“Illinois has no connection to the claim … other than that Macey & Aleman is an Illinois partnership and has its principal place of business in Chicago,” wrote U.S. District Judge James F. Holderman in granting a dismissal in Macey & Aleman v. Simmons.
Macey & Aleman is an Illinois partnership with its principal place of business in Chicago, Illinois. The law firm bills itself as the nation’s largest consumer bankruptcy firm and boasts having 100 offices in 19 states.
Carlene Simmons and Elizabeth Kamper are Arizona lawyers who used to work for Macey & Aleman at the firm’s Phoenix office. In July 2010, the two lawyers decided to bolt Macey & Aleman for supposedly greener pastures, joining Davis Miles, the Tempe, Ariz. firm.
At first, Macey & Aleman was miffed that the two departing lawyers left without giving the standard two weeks’ notice. Annoyance turned to outrage when over 220 of Macey & Aleman’s clients followed Simmons and Kamper to Davis Miles.
Macey & Aleman cried foul, alleging that the two Arizona attorneys had taken confidential information, including the firm’s Phoenix client list, when they moved to Davis Miles. According to Macey & Aleman, Simmons and Kamper used the contact information to solicit Macey & Aleman clients to switch firms.
To stop the loss of clients, Macey & Aleman first sued Simmons and Kamper in Illinois state court. The case was removed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois where Macey & Aleman upped the ante by adding claims against Davis Miles for conversion, tortious interference with a business expectancy, and defamation.
The defamation claim related to statements in letters that Davis Miles allegedly sent to Macey & Aleman clients in order to encourage them to switch firms.
The Arizona law firm moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction.
In arguing that its claims against Davis Miles should not be dismissed, Macey & Aleman contended that specific jurisdiction existed because Davis Miles engaged in intentional conduct expressly aimed at Illinois with knowledge that the Chicago law firm would be injured there.
Last week, Judge Holderman decided that Macey & Aleman failed to show personal jurisdiction under the so-called “effects test.”
In dismissing Davis Miles from the case, the judge explained:
Macey & Aleman has failed to provide any evidence of a connection between Davis Miles’s allegedly tortious conduct and Illinois. All of the events leading up to the tort and the tortious conduct itself took place in Arizona. The employees that Davis Miles allegedly lured away from Macey & Aleman all lived and worked in Arizona as employees of Macey & Aleman’s Phoenix office, and the confidential information Davis Miles allegedly converted was located in Arizona. The clients Davis Miles allegedly stole were clients of Macey & Aleman’s Phoenix office who presumably lived in and around Phoenix. The allegedly defamatory letter sent to those clients was thus sent only to Arizona, and not to Illinois. … [A]ll of the commercial relationships with which Davis Miles allegedly interfered were entirely in Arizona. The “focal point” of the tort is thus Arizona, not Illinois.
– Pat Murphy
