Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Xlink Resource Group, LLC alleges that it was the victim of a multiyear scheme involving a purported sale of two million barrels of oil from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. Xlink, acting as an intermediary for a buyer, allegedly paid approximately $700,000 in transaction deposits and testing fees while the defendants used counterfeit documents to create the appearance of a legitimate deal.
Xlink asserted civil RICO and common-law fraud claims. Defendant James Uduak Ubom initially moved to dismiss for insufficient service of process without challenging personal jurisdiction. After Xlink amended its complaint to add Ubom Law Group, PLLC and perfected service on Ubom, Ubom and the law firm filed identical motions invoking lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, lack of personal jurisdiction, and insufficient service.
The Court’s Holding
The court denied both motions. It held that federal-question jurisdiction existed because Xlink asserted a claim under the federal RICO statute and that supplemental jurisdiction extended to the related state-law claims. The court also treated the defendants’ Rule 12(b)(5) objections as waived because they merely cited the rule without supplying supporting argument.
As to personal jurisdiction, the court held that Ubom waived the defense by omitting it from his first Rule 12 motion. For Ubom Law Group, the court adopted the majority approach to RICO’s nationwide-service provisions: at least one initial defendant must be subject to traditional personal jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 1965(a), after which § 1965(b) permits nationwide service when the ends of justice require it. Because Texas-based defendants satisfied the first requirement and the alleged scheme involved defendants across eight jurisdictions and two foreign countries, with no single forum clearly able to exercise traditional jurisdiction over all of them, the court found personal jurisdiction over the law firm.
Key Takeaways
- A defendant generally waives a personal-jurisdiction defense by omitting it from the defendant’s first Rule 12 motion.
- The court followed the majority view that 18 U.S.C. § 1965(b) permits nationwide service in a civil RICO case when an initial defendant is properly subject to jurisdiction and the ends of justice require bringing other parties before the court.
- Merely citing Rule 12(b)(5), without briefing an alleged defect in service, is insufficient to preserve the objection.
Why It Matters
The ruling shows how civil RICO’s nationwide-service framework can allow one court to hear claims arising from an alleged multistate and international scheme even when traditional forum contacts may be lacking for some defendants. It also underscores the need to consolidate available Rule 12 defenses in the first motion and to substantively brief each asserted ground for dismissal.