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Court of Appeal:
Jurisdiction Might Exist in Dispute Between Non-Residents
Plaintiff Resides in Colorado, Defendant Lives in Australia, and Wrongful Conduct Allegedly Took Place in Florida; Opinion Says California May Serve as Forum if Discovery Shows Defendant Would Be ‘Essentially at Home’ Here
By a MetNews Staff Writer
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CAILIN HARDELL company co-founder |
ADRIAN VANZYL investor/entrepreneur |
Div. Four of the First District Court of Appeal has ordered reinstatement of proceedings in a suit over alleged sexual assaults, said to have occurred over a period of hours in Miami, brought by a Colorado resident against a man who lives in Australia.
The justices held in an opinion filed Thursday that despite the situs of the event in question and the whereabouts of the parties, a trial judge might find, on remand, that the defendant would be “essentially at home” in a California court, conferring general jurisdiction over him.
Justice Jeremy M. Goldman authored the opinion reversing an order by San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard B. Ulmer quashing service of a summons on one of two purported assailants, Adrian Vanzyl.
Allegations of Complaint
According to the first amended complaint:
“After intoxicating her, Adrian Vanzyl—a senior director of Blumberg Capital—and Waleed Mohsen sexually assaulted Cailin Hardell, the CEO of Segmed, Inc. Hardell neither welcomed nor consented to their conduct. Her ability to resist the repeated assault—and she tried—was compromised by alcohol, past trauma, and the stakes, which included Segmed’s continued existence and success as a company. Blumberg was Segmed’s primary investor.”
The assaults, the pleading says, began on the night of March 8, 2022, at the beach and continued in a hotel room into the morning of the following day. Vanzyl, it is averred, treated Hardell “like a sex slave” and, “[d]efeated, Hardell did as directed.”
Parties’ Residences
Segmed, a medical data company, is based in Palo Alto, a city in Santa Clara County, and Blumberg has an office in San Francisco, as well as Miami and elsewhere. Initial contacts between Hardell and Vanzyl were in California, where both were domiciled.
However, at the time of the alleged incident, Hardell was a resident of Colorado, having moved there in March 2020, and Vanzyl had a home with his wife in Miami, where they relocated a month earlier. At the time Vanzyl was served with a summons and complaint on March 25, 2023, he was a resident of Australia.
Ulmer found that California had neither specific jurisdiction over Vanzyl—based on a relationship between the defendant’s connection with the state and the claim, nor general jurisdiction, founded on wide-ranging contacts with the forum state.
Goldman’s Opinion
Goldman agreed that specific jurisdiction is lacking, explaining:
“Vanzyl’s asserted conditioning of a benefit on sexual favors occurred on the beach in Florida. The earlier contacts in California may well have set the stage for the alleged power dynamic that facilitated the events in Florida, as Hardell argues….But a business-related power imbalance may exist innocuously and indefinitely. It does not, without more, establish a sexual harassment claim, and there is no allegation that Vanzyl made sexual overtures to Hardell, or even planned them, anywhere other than in Florida. Although Hardell uses the word ‘grooming’ in her briefing, there are no allegations in the complaint that, while in California, Vanzyl cultivated a relationship with her with the intent of later making sexual advances or committing a sexual assault.”
However, the jurist spotted a prospect that general jurisdiction might be established and said that, on remand, Hardell must be given an opportunity to seek facts, through discovery, that might give rise to the exercise of such jurisdiction.
San Francisco Ties
He noted that after Vanzyl moved to Florida, he continued for more than a year to be described on as a San Francisco-based investor. Also, Goldman recited, Vanzyl retained ownership of a San Francisco-based company, Target Velocity, answering phone calls to a number with a San Francisco area code, and maintained an email account with the domain name of “targetvelocity.com.”
“Under the circumstances,” he wrote, “we believe the trial court should have considered whether the nature and quality of Vanzyl’s continued contacts with California rendered him subject to general jurisdiction here notwithstanding that he was domiciled elsewhere.
“To answer that question, we think the trial court should assess the nature of Vanzyl’s continuing contacts with California as of the lawsuit’s filing through the time that service was effectuated.”
The case is Hardell v. Vanzyl, 2024 S.O.S. 1978.
Hardell, a co-founder of Segmed, is no longer CEO, and Vanzyl now tends to duties at his own company, Stealth Startup.
Copyright 2024, Metropolitan News Company