Jurisdiction – Hotel – Marketing

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Where two out-of-state defendants have moved to dismiss a complaint filed against them following the death of a child on the premises of Hotel Valcartier in Canada, dismissal is warranted because the plaintiffs have failed to establish that either defendant owned, operated or controlled the hotel or had any involvement in the marketing activities between the hotel and the plaintiffs.

“Pending before the Court are Defendants EPR Properties and Premier Parks, LLC’s Motions to Dismiss Plaintiffs’ complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(2). …

“Plaintiffs allege five counts against Defendants EPR Properties (‘EPR’) and Premier Parks, LLC, (‘Premier Parks’) individually for the wrongful death of their son, Anthony Putnam. … On January 12, 2024, Anthony Putnam, who was five years old at the time, was on the premises of Hotel Valcartier when a Murphy bed in one of the hotel’s rooms collapsed on him, causing catastrophic head injuries and leading to his death later that night. …

“Plaintiffs allege that EPR and Premier Parks operate the Hotel Valcartier in Québec, Canada together, specifically averring that EPR owns the property and Premier Parks manages it. …

“Plaintiffs must proffer prima facie evidence that specific jurisdiction is proper over EPR under both the Massachusetts long-arm statute and the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution. …

“… For jurisdiction to be proper under [G.L.c. 223A,] §3(a), ‘the defendant must have transacted business in Massachusetts, and the plaintiff’s claim must have arisen from the transaction of business by the defendant.’ Tatro v. Manor Care, Inc., 625 N.E.2d 549, 551 (Mass. 1994). …

“As the Court will not credit ‘conclusory allegations’ or ‘conclusory averments’ without ‘evidence of specific facts,’ and plaintiffs may not ‘rely on unsupported allegations in their pleadings,’ … the Court finds that specific jurisdiction over Defendant EPR is improper under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 223A, §3(a). On that basis alone, Plaintiffs’ complaint may be dismissed with regards to Defendant EPR. However, Plaintiffs’ allegations are also insufficient under the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution. …

“… For specific personal jurisdiction, the constitutional analysis has three distinct prongs: relatedness, purposeful availment, and reasonableness. Phillips v. Prairie Eye Ctr., 530 F.3d 22, 26 (1st Cir. 2008). …

“Plaintiffs try to establish personal jurisdiction over EPR by arguing it conducted marketing to Massachusetts residents and solicited Massachusetts residents to stay at Hotel Valcartier. However, as detailed supra, Plaintiffs cannot actually link EPR to the marketing materials Elizabeth Putnam received and thus, Plaintiffs fail to proffer evidence showing that EPR’s alleged contacts with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have any relation to their cause of action, even under the Nandjou [v. Marriott Int’l, Inc., 985 F.3d 135 (1st Cir. 2021)] relatedness standard. … Neither Elizabeth Putnam’s affidavit nor the attached exhibits reference EPR or EPR Properties when referring to the entities she communicated with at Hotel Valcartier. … This case, therefore, is unlike Nandjou and Nowak [v. Tak How Invs., Ltd., 94 F.3d 708, 712–13 (1st Cir. 1996)] because in those cases there was evidence that the defendants had directly engaged with the plaintiff-consumer, and there was no question as to whether the defendants owned or operated the facility. …

“Here, Plaintiffs fail to allege a causal nexus between EPR and the injury to Anthony Putnam. Accordingly, they cannot meet the relatedness prong of the analysis, and the Court lacks personal jurisdiction over EPR. Plaintiffs cannot establish that EPR controlled or directed the Hotel Valcartier or its marketing efforts to defeat the presumption of corporate separateness. …

“Plaintiffs’ jurisdictional evidence for Premier Park’s alleged contacts with the forum state is largely similar to their evidence regarding EPR. …

“As with EPR, Plaintiffs fail to establish the Premier Parks owned, operated, or controlled Hotel Valcartier or had any involvement in the marketing activities between the hotel and Elizabeth Putnam. …

“Accordingly, Plaintiffs fail to meet the relatedness prong of both the long arm statute analysis and the Due Process analysis, and the Court lacks personal jurisdiction over Premier Parks.”

Putnam, et al. v. EPR Properties, et al. (Lawyers Weekly No. 02-471-25) (22 pages) (Guzman, J.) (Civil No. 4:24-cv-40136-MRG) (Aug. 29, 2025).

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