Frida Kahlo Corporation v. Mara Cristina Teresa Romeo Pinedo
The Eleventh Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction over defendants Familia Kahlo S.A. de C.V. and Mara Cristina Teresa Romeo Pinedo in this dispute concerning trademark rights to the late artist Frida Kahlo's name and likeness. Plaintiffs Frida Kahlo Corporation and Frida Kahlo Investments, S.A. alleged that defendants committed tortious interference with advantageous business relationships under Florida law and sought declaratory relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2201 by sending cease-and-desist letters to plaintiffs' Florida licensees falsely asserting trademark ownership and threatening litigation. The district court had dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction, finding that Florida's corporate shield doctrine protected Pinedo and that defendants' transmission of cease-and-desist letters, "without more," failed to establish minimum contacts for due process purposes. The Eleventh Circuit held that Florida's long-arm statute authorized jurisdiction over both defendants and that exercising jurisdiction comported with due process.
The court's analysis turned on two doctrinal moves. First, it held that Florida's corporate shield doctrine did not insulate Pinedo because the cease-and-desist letters twice identified Familia Kahlo as Pinedo's "representative" in her capacity as Frida Kahlo's heiress, indicating she acted individually through an agent rather than solely in a corporate capacity; defendants' failure to rebut this plain textual evidence with direct affidavit testimony proved fatal. Second, and more significantly for trademark practitioners facing forum disputes over threatening correspondence, the court held that tortious cease-and-desist letters satisfy both the "effects test" and the traditional minimum contacts test for purposeful availment, expressly questioning the continued vitality of Red Wing Shoe Co. v. Hockerson-Halberstadt, 148 F.3d 1355 (Fed. Cir. 1998), which suggested infringement-related communications alone generally cannot establish personal jurisdiction. The court emphasized that where cease-and-desist letters are allegedly tortious—sent under false claims of ownership and directly targeting forum business activities—they constitute purposeful availment when the cause of action arises directly from those contacts, and the defendant should reasonably anticipate being haled into court in the forum state under Calder v. Jones, 465 U.S. 783 (1984).