Loredana Ranza v. Nike, Inc.

Plaintiff Loredana Ranza appeals the district court’s dismissal of her complaint alleging sex and age discrimination in the workplace in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-2, 2000e-3, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. § 623 . Ranza brought claims in the District of Oregon against her former employer, Nike European Operations Netherlands, B.V. (NEON), and NEON’s parent company, Nike, Inc., which is headquartered in Oregon. The alleged discriminatory conduct occurred in the Netherlands.

We first hold NEON’s contacts with the state of Oregon are insufficient to make it amenable to general personal jurisdiction there, pursuant to Daimler AG v. Bauman, — U.S.-, 134 S.Ct. 746 , 187 L.Ed.2d 624 (2014). We then decide under what circumstances a court may attribute a parent company’s contacts with the forum state to its foreign subsidiary for the purpose of exercising general personal jurisdiction over the subsidiary. We hold a court may do so upon a showing that the subsidiary is an alter ego of its parent, consistent with Doe v. Unocal Corp., 248 F.3d 915 (9th Cir.2001). Because Ranza has not shown…