In an unpublished opinion on personal jurisdiction, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected plaintiff Angela Tomlinson’s claim that defendant H&R Block, at least in part through its website, had maintained the necessary “continuous and systematic contact” with the state of Oklahoma to confer personal jurisdiction under the state’s long arm statute. Tomlinson filed a class action lawsuit against H&R block for failing to protect personal information according to the company’s published privacy policy. She claimed that H&R Block used her social security number in educational seminars and tax preparation training courses in their “2002 Student Work book.” The district court granted H&R Block a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and Tomlinson appealed.H&R Block claimed that they were solely a holding company and did not conduct business or maintain a physical presence in Oklahoma. They argued that Oklahoma courts had no general or specific jurisdiction over them because the company had neither substantial, systematic and continuous contacts, nor minimum contacts with the state.
To show minimum contacts, Tomlinson submitted evidence of a training manual for an Oklahoma Income Tax Training Course and a separate page from an unidentified textbook that claimed it was copyrighted by “H&R Block Tax Services, Inc.” However, she was unable to link the page to the training manual in any way. The 10th Circuit agreed with the district court that, based on this evidence, Tomlinson had not met her burden to show that the defendant had the minimum contacts with the state necessary to maintain personal jurisdiction.
Tomlinson also argued that the court should be able to assert general jurisdiction over H&R Block because its website claims to serve “over 18.7 million tax clients in the United States,” and some of those clients must be in Oklahoma. The court found that Tomlinson’s inference was erroneous, citing a disclaimer on the H&R Block website that made it clear that it was only a holding company and that all goods and services were offered by subsidiaries of H&R Block and not H&R Block itself. The court affirmed the district court’s ruling that Tomlinson failed to prove that the court had either general or specific jurisdiction over H&R Block.