Jacob Smith ‘23
Professor Liason Editor
Do you follow chess? If not, let me alert you to the next big defamation lawsuit. Hans Neimann, a nineteen-year-old grandmaster, has sued Magnus Carlsen and other defendants for defamation (among other things), based on allegations that he cheated. This article introduces the chess mess and analyzes just one piece of the legal puzzle: Which defendants will get dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction?
Statement of Facts
Magnus Carlsen, the incumbent world champion, is Defendant Number One in Hans’s complaint. (An affiliated chess app, Play Magnus, is also a defendant.) After Hans defeated Magnus at the Sinquefield Cup, an elite St. Louis tournament, Magnus allegedly accused Hans of cheating during the tournament. Magnus then quit the tournament amidst circumstances that made his suspicions clear to the chess community.
The other defendants named in the complaint are Chess.com, its Chief Chess Officer Danny Rensch, and Hikaru Nakamura. Hikaru is an elite chess grandmaster and my favorite Twitch streamer. While streaming, Hikaru reacted to the Magnus-Hans conflagration and shared his thoughts and conjectures rather extensively. Akiva Cohen, a lawyer who posts on Twitter, has suggested that it was a strategic blunder to include Hikaru, but as Reddit commenter suggested, Hikaru may have been added to the lawsuit just to shut him up.
Chess.com, on the other hand, reacted by banning Hans from its platform and tournaments and accusing him of lying about the extent of his cheating in online games. The website followed up with a seventy-two-page report that made claims about Hans’s disciplinary history with the website and collected evidence suggesting that he may have cheated at over-the-board tournaments.
When Hans filed his forty-four-page complaint, seeking at least $100 million in damages on multiple counts, he did so in Missouri. So, let’s talk civil procedure. Because Missouri has a long-arm statute, personal jurisdiction turns into a question of pure constitutional law. The two main paths to satisfy constitutional due process are general and specific jurisdiction, so I will analyze both.[1]
General Jurisdiction
Let’s start with general jurisdiction. None of the parties actually reside in Missouri. For the individual defendants, that ends the analysis. For the corporate defendants, the question is whether their affiliations are so continuous and systematic as to render them essentially at home in Missouri under Daimler AG v. Bauman.[2] Both Chess.com and Play Magnus provide Internet chess services, which somewhat complicates matters. The Eighth Circuit appears to apply a three-part test to online businesses. First, it asks under the Zippo “sliding scale” whether the website passively posts information, is interactive, or enters into contracts that involve the transmission of computer files; second, it asks whether the quantity of contacts is sufficient; and finally, it asks whether jurisdiction would be reasonable and would not offend notions of fair play and substantial justice.[3]
Chess.com just might satisfy the Eighth Circuit’s test. Chess.com and Play Magnus subscribers pay for online services that include online lessons, which arguably places both of them in the highest Zippo category. Further, Chess.com has ninety-five million members, presumably including a good number of Missouri residents (though many “members” are not paying subscribers). The Play Magnus platform, in contrast, probably has fewer Missouri customers. The final “fair play” question is a messy combination of factors but doesn’t obviously rule jurisdiction out.
Specific jurisdiction
Missouri has specific jurisdiction if a defendant purposefully directed activities at the state, and the claim arises out of those activities.[4] Magnus made allegedly defamatory statements to organizers of the Missouri tournament, so Missouri has specific jurisdiction over Magnus. There is probably no jurisdiction over Play Magnus, however, because Magnus was almost certainly not acting as an agent of Play Magnus, as Cohen has pointed out.
It is hard to see how the other defendants could have targeted Missouri. Posting (or in Hikaru’s case, streaming) defamatory content so it can be accessed in Missouri is not sufficient.[5] The supposed defamation revolved around a Missouri tournament, but that doesn’t work, either. For example, the claim that Plaintiffs “operated from Unionville, Missouri, where they killed cats, sold infected cats and kittens, brutally killed and tortured unwanted cats and operated a ‘kitten mill’”—was held to not be speech aimed at Missouri.[6]
Conclusion
Putting the pieces together: Missouri should have specific jurisdiction over Magnus. It may have general jurisdiction over Chess.com but likely lacks jurisdiction of either kind over Hikaru and Play Magnus. Personal jurisdiction should be a big part of the motions to dismiss that are due November 14. Choice of law doctrine, the actual merits, and the arbitration clause in Chess.com’s Terms of Service should also feature in the motions, but I’ll leave that for a later article, or as an exercise for the reader.
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js3hp@virginia.edu
[1] I am a mere law student, so take this analysis with a grain of salt.
[2] 571 U.S. 117, 138–39 (2014).
[3] Lakin v. Prudential Sec., Inc., 348 F.3d 704, 710–13 (8th Cir. 2003) (citing Zippo Mfg. Co. v. Zippo Dot Com, Inc., 952 F. Supp. 1119, 1124 (W.D. Pa. 1997)).
[4] Johnson v. Arden, 614 F.3d 785, 795 (8th Cir. 2010).
[5] Id. at 796.
[6] Id. Yes, this is a real case.