ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh Jr. of the Eastern District of Missouri has dismissed the parent company of a business that rents boom lifts from a lawsuit alleging a worker was killed by allegedly faulty equipment.
In his Sept 18 ruling, Limbaugh held that his court lacks personal jurisdiction over Platinum Equity LLC, a Delaware-based limited liability company with its principal place of business in California.
In his ruling, he also denied plaintiffs' request for jurisdictional discovery.
“Plaintiffs’ claims of an alter-ego relationship between Platinum and BlueLine sound in pure speculation,” he wrote. “This court is satisfied upon the pleadings, affidavits, and exhibits that Platinum is not, in fact, the alter ego of BlueLine; rather, at most, Platinum had some macro-management control over BlueLine, which cannot support personal jurisdiction here.”
Plaintiffs Renee Teresa Goellner-Grant, Kyle D. Grant and Alexander Goellner originally sued in St. Louis County Circuit Court, alleging that a boom lift caused the death of Randall Lee Grant.
According to the order, the lift, which was apparently rented to Grant’s employer at some point by a non-party to the litigation, CBL & Associates Properties, allegedly caused his death in 2015 after he became trapped between the lift’s control panel and a metal cross-bar protruding from the ceiling of a garage he was working in.
The plaintiffs' lawsuit was removed to federal court in June.
Limbaugh's order states that the jurisdictional dispute involves the relationship between Platinum and fellow defendant BlueLine Rental LLC, of which Platinum is the parent company.
Platinum does not have offices, property or workers in Missouri, and further is not registered to do business in Missouri, the order states. It is a private equity investment firm that specializes in mergers, acquisition and operation of companies in a range of different product markets, according to the order.
Platinum’s parent-subsidiary relationship with BlueLine does not create personal jurisdiction, Limbaugh held.