Counterfeit American Girl Doll Claims Revived by 2nd. Cir.

Claims that a Chinese company sells knock-off American Girl dolls into the US were wrongly dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, the Second Circuit said.

A district court judge incorrectly concluded that online retailer Zembrka refunding orders without shipping products meant it hadn’t transacted business in New York, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said. The company accepted payment on orders listing New York shipping addresses, and refunds and cancellation of the orders mostly occurred after American Girl LLC had already sued.

Nothing in New York’s long-arm statute required a completed sale, just a “transaction,” according to the precedential ...