In Yamashita v. LG Chem, Ltd., 62 F.4th 496 (9th Cir. 2023), the Ninth Circuit held that a products liability case involving an exploding lithium battery did not “arise out of or relate to” the South Korean manufacturer’s contacts with the forum state for purposes of personal jurisdiction. (See March 6, 2023 post, Ninth Circuit Holds Battery Maker Made “Purposeful Availment” of the State of Hawai’i Sufficient for Personal Jurisdiction, Yet A Product Liability Case Did Not “Arise Out of Or Relate To” Those Contacts.)
Yet in a case presenting material identical facts, a Fifth Circuit panel divides 2-1 and holds that a South Korean manufacturer was indeed subject to personal jurisdiction in Texas, where the manufacturer sold the same product to others there. Ethridge v. Samsung SDI, No. 23-40094 (5th Cir. May 14, 2025). The cases present divergent interpretations of the controlling Supreme Court precedent, Ford Motor Co v. Mont. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 592 U.S. 351 (2021).
“James Ethridge is a citizen of Texas. In October 2018, he bought a Samsung 18650 lithium-ion battery from a Wyoming-based seller on Amazon. The battery was presumably shipped to Ethridge in Texas, although the record does not describe how the Wyoming seller obtained the battery or got it to Ethridge. Ethridge appears to have bought the battery for the purpose of powering an e-cigarette device. In November 2019, the Samsung 18650 battery exploded while it was in Ethridge’s pocket in League City, Texas. Ethridge sustained ‘severe burns and other injuries.’”
Ethridge sued (among other entities) the battery maker Samsung, which is based in South Korea. “Samsung does not have a physical presence in the United States. Rather, it uses various subsidiaries and distribution companies to serve customers in the United States.”
Samsung moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(2). The district court granted the motion, holding that Ethridge failed to establish that the injuries he sustained in Texas “arise out of or relate to” Samsung’s contacts with the forum, i.e., the sale of 18650 lithium-ion batteries to various businesses headquartered in Texas (HP, Dell, and Black & Decker).
The Fifth Circuit reverses. The panel majority opinion by Judge Andrew Oldham begins by noting that the Texas long-arm statute “extends to the limits of the United States Constitution,” so the only question presented was whether personal jurisdiction over Samsung comported with “traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice,” Int’l Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 316 (1945).
Because Samsung was neither incorporated nor headquartered in Texas, it could only be summoned into the state through specific personal jurisdiction. Under the principles of Ford Motor, “to establish specific personal jurisdiction, three conditions must be met: (1) the defendant purposefully availed itself of the privilege of conducting activities in the forum State, (2) the plaintiff’s claim arises out of or relates to those purposeful contacts with the forum, and (3) the exercise of personal jurisdiction must be fair and reasonable.”
“The crux of the case is the Supreme Court’s second condition for exercising specific personal jurisdiction.” The panel majority extracts the following rule of “relatedness” from Ford Motor: “Where the defendant sold a non-insignificant volume of product in the forum State, an in-state plaintiff’s suit involving the in-state use of and in-state injury from the same product will satisfy the relatedness condition of specific personal jurisdiction. Call it the ‘same product plus in-state injury’ test for relatedness.”
Applying that test, the panel majority finds sufficient relatedness in this case. “Samsung admits that it sells 18650 batteries directly to customers in Texas, including HP, Dell, and Black & Decker. There is no reason to believe that those 18650 batteries are different in any way from the 18650 battery that exploded in Ethridge’s pocket. And, while it is not clear how many batteries were sold to Samsung’s corporate customers, the record does not suggest that the sales are ‘isolated’ or ‘sporadic.’”
Samsung also failed with a different argument, that sales of lithium batteries to businesses did not “relate to” sales to consumers, i.e., the “different market” theory. “Personal jurisdiction rules should be as clear and administrable as possible at the outset of a case. Rule 12(b)(1) inquiries cannot turn on whether a defendant sells to government purchasers but not private ones; large businesses but not small ones; businesses in one industry but not another; purchasers in one link of the supply chain but not another; businesses in Austin but not Dallas; and so on.”
The panel majority also expressly rejects the Ninth Circuit holding in Yamashita.
“With all respect for our learned colleagues to the West (and our esteemed dissenting colleague who agrees with them, see post, at 6–8), we understand Ford differently. According to our best reading of Ford, the first part of the relatedness standard (‘arise out of’) is about causation, but the second half (‘relate to’) is not: ‘The first half of that standard asks about causation; but the back half, after the ‘or,’ contemplates that some relationships will support jurisdiction without a causal showing’ . . . . And the Court did not hold that relatedness was solely a proxy for causation, however loose. In fact, the Court explicitly noted that personal jurisdiction would still be permitted if a plaintiff had made an out-of-state purchasing decision without considering any of Ford’s activities in her home State . . . . That hypothetical situation contains no evidence of causation but still permits the exercise of specific personal jurisdiction.”
Finally, and notably (given Judge Oldman’s sterling conservative credentials), the opinion closes with a veiled suggestion that the entire Int’l Shoe line of authority should be revisited:
“How should we analyze the contention that personal jurisdiction offends ‘fair play and substantial justice’? The doctrine does not come from constitutional text or original law. See Ford, 592 U.S. at 384 (Gorsuch, J., concurring in the judgment); cf. Stephen E. Sachs, Pennoyer Was Right, 95 Tex. L. Rev. 1249 (2017); Lawrence B. Solum & Max Crema, Originalism and Personal Jurisdiction: Several Questions and a Few Answers, 73 Ala. L. Rev. 483 (2022). It instead turns on the substantive component of the Due Process Clause, as interpreted by binding Supreme Court precedent. So the only way to resolve cases like this one is to ask whether the defendant carried its burden to show that Supreme Court precedent gives it the right to object to personal jurisdiction in the forum State. See Ford, 592 U.S. at 384 (Gorsuch, J., concurring in the judgment). While we acknowledge that reasonable jurists can interpret that precedent differently, we think Samsung failed to carry its burden.”
A judge with equally sterling conservative credentials, Judge Edith Jones, dissents.
“The majority’s approach would allow consumers to force manufacturers to entertain a products liability lawsuit for any product in any forum, so long as the manufacturer engages in some activity in that forum. And that would be the case even if, as here, the manufacturer intentionally avoids selling the subject product to consumers in that forum. According to the majority, an unauthorized out-of-state third-party seller’s shipping the desired product to the forum is enough to confer jurisdiction. How can Samsung’s decision to structure its business to strenuously avoid direct-to-consumer sales be irrelevant for the purposes of due process? Yet that decision by Samsung must be critically important in the specific personal jurisdiction analysis. Otherwise, the principles of reciprocity and mutuality are compromised, along with the predictability and notice that the judicial system owes to businesses large and small.”