Eleventh Circuit today

There was one lonely Eleventh Circuit opinion today: it reversed the district court's dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction in an intellectual property case. Vax-D Medical Technologies v. Texas Spine Medical Center. The procedural history is tangled: the plaintiff, Vax-D, first served an individual, David Boudreau, as the defendant, properly serving him. It then amended its complaint, naming Texas Spine (a Texas resident, as you might have guessed), and David Boudreau as an officer of Texas Spine. Again, Vax-D properly served the amended complaint. Boudreau answered without raising a defense based on lack of personal jurisdiction, and participated in the litigation and discovery. Only when Vax-D served a second amended complaint, alleging that Texas Spine was a fictitious name under which Boudreau did business, did a personal jurisdiction issue suddenly arise. Having already served both defendants, Vax-D this time only mailed the second amended complaint to Boudreau's last known address, and the defendants contended they had not received it, and did not participate further in the litigation. The district court dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction due to improper service.

Not so fast, says the Eleventh Circuit. Boudreau and Texas Spine had already been properly served (or if they weren't, they had waived their defense), and filing a second amended complaint that actually alleged Texas Spine as a fictitious name did not invalidate the already-proper service of the complaint and amended complaint.