Corporate Flight Management, Inc. v. Talaviation, S.A. Et Al.

The issue in this appeal is whether the Tennessee court had personal jurisdiction over the Defendant. A Luxemburg company contracted with a French citizen to provide the citizen with a certain number of flight hours on the company’s private jets; the contract provided that, if the company did not have a jet available, it would procure a private jet from a third party. After providing a jet for the citizen to travel from Luxemburg to Turks and Caicos, the company did not have a jet available to return the citizen to his home, so the company engaged a charter aircraft company based in Tennessee to fly the citizen home in one of the Tennessee company’s jets. When the Luxemburg company did not pay for the flight, the Tennessee company filed this breach of contract action against the Luxemburg company and the French citizen in Rutherford County Chancery Court. The French citizen moved to dismiss the action against him on the ground that the Tennessee court lacked personal jurisdiction over him; the motion was granted. The Tennessee company appeals, contending that the court had personal jurisdiction over the French citizen because the Luxemburg company acted as the citizen’s agent and its contacts with Tennessee were thereby imputed to him for jurisdictional purposes. We conclude that the trial court correctly determined that it did not have personal jurisdiction over the French citizen and accordingly affirm the judgment granting the motion to dismiss.