Tuesday, August 4, 2026
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Jurisdiction Lies Over Chinese Citizen Served in California, Ninth Circuit Declares
Panel Says It Doesn’t Matter That Summons Was Handed Not to Defendant but to Cotenant of Residence; Personal Presence in State Held to Be Key
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The District Court for the Southern District of California gained personal jurisdiction over a Chinese citizen notwithstanding that the summons was handed to a cohabitant of the dwelling in which the defendant was residing, rather than personally serving him, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held yesterday.
Authoring the opinion was J. Campbell Barker, a District Court judge for the Eastern District of Texas, sitting by designation. His opinion affirms a judgment by District Court Judge Michael M. Anello who, after denying the defendant’s motion to dismiss, confirmed a foreign arbitral award for about 150 million yuan—the equivalent of roughly $22.2 million—in favor of a lender against Liu Yingkui.
In the District Court, Liu invoked Federal Rules of Civil Procedure §12(b)(2) which establishes as a defense “lack of personal jurisdiction.” On appeal, he put forth that defense, and also relied upon §12(b)(5)—“insufficient service of process”—asserting that under California law, the substitute service was insufficient.
Due Process
Barker wrote:
“We hold that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not condition the existence of presence-based personal jurisdiction on service of process on the defendant’s person as opposed to other means of service of process….We thus reject appellant’s Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2) defense of lack of personal jurisdiction….We then decline to resolve appellant’s argument that service of process was insufficient because that separate defense under Rule 12(b)(5) was not raised in appellant’s motion to dismiss and is thus waived.”
The jurist said that because plaintiff Shenzhen Zehuijin Investment Center is not claiming that jurisdiction is founded on Liu’s ties to California, if jurisdiction lies, it is general, not specific. Anello ruled that general jurisdiction exists because Liu was served while in the state, and Barker expressed agreement, pointing to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1990 plurality opinion in Burnham v. Superior Court. of California, County of Marin in which Justice Antonin Scalia (now deceased) said:
“Among the most firmly established principles of personal jurisdiction in American tradition is that the courts of a State have jurisdiction over nonresidents who are physically present in the State.”
Personal Presence
Barker pointed out:
“Service of summons on the defendant’s person, as occurred in Burnham…may have been the most common means of service of process. But the Burnham’s plurality emphasized the importance of a defendant’s physical presence when subjected to a state’s legal process, not service of process on the defendant’s person to the exclusion of other means of serving process.”
The visiting judge went on to say:
“Moreover, in a provision cited approvingly by the Burnham plurality…, the Restatement (First) of Conflict of Laws gives the following illustration of personal jurisdiction arising from a defendant’s voluntary presence and service of process in a state:
“A brings an action against B in a court of state X. B is domiciled in and a citizen of state Y, but is stopping at a hotel in X. hi accordance with a statute, process is served upon B by mail, the process being duly received by B at the hotel. The court has jurisdiction over B.”
Applicable to Case
That, Barker said, “maps cleanly to the facts of this case,” setting forth:
“State X is California here, and defendant B is Liu. Although Liu might be domiciled elsewhere (state Y in the illustration). Liu was voluntarily present in California when served with process at his residence there by means that were reasonably calculated to achieve—and that did achieve—actual notice. That suffices to establish personal jurisdiction. Id..”
He added:
“Justice Brennan’s concurrence in Burnham also supports the existence of personal jurisdiction here. Justice Brennan placed less weight on a jurisdictional rule’s historical pedigree and gave more weight to an independent inquiry into the rule’s fairness under contemporary notions of due process….Under that approach. Justice Brenna considered the attenuation of a defendant’s connection to a state asserting personal jurisdiction, whether a non-domiciled defendant availed himself of significant benefits provided by the state, and the potential burdens on the non-domiciled defendant.”
The case is Shenzhen Zehuijin Investment Center. v. Yingkui, 24-6215.
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