Mandamus Granted re Jurisdictional Discovery

In In re Smith & Nephew Orthopaedics Ltd., a dispute about “stream of commerce” personal jurisdiction, the Fifth Court observed:

As the Texas Supreme Court recently explained in Christianson Air Conditioning and Plumbing, a products liability case, ‘information sought in jurisdictional discovery must be essential to prove at least one disputed factor that is necessary to the plaintiff’s proposed theory or theories of personal jurisdiction.’ In that case, the supreme court observed that simply inserting the phrase ‘in Texas’ or ‘in Texas field conditions’ into a topic, as the plaintiffs in that case did, would not make it essential to prove specific jurisdiction.”

(citations omitted). Applying those principles, the Court reviewed ten corporate-representative deposition topics and held: “[T]he topics are too broad as they seek non-essential information that will not support [Plaintiffs’] stream-of-commerce plus theory.” No. 05-22-00495-CV (Sept. 16, 2022) (mem. op.).