MEMORANDUM DECISION and ORDER I. INTRODUCTION On December 16, 2019, plaintiff Stephen Edwards (“Edwards” or “plaintiff”) filed this products liability action against defendants FCA US LLC (“FCA”) and Does 1 to 25 (the “Does”) alleging that the seatbelt and airbags in his pickup truck failed when he lost control of the vehicle and drove into a tree. On March 13, 2020, FCA moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (“Rule”) 12(b)(2) to dismiss Edwards’s complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction. Dkt. No. 13. However, before further briefing on that motion could occur, plaintiff’s attorneys moved for leave to withdraw as counsel of record. Dkt. No. 14. This Court granted a sixty-day adjournment of briefing on FCA’s dismissal motion and referred the representation issue to U.S. Magistrate Judge Therese Wiley Dancks. Dkt. Nos. 15-31. On April 16, 2020, Judge Dancks granted the attorneys’ motion to withdraw after Edwards consented to the request and agreed to represent himself in this matter. Dkt. No. 37. Although Judge Dancks instructed plaintiff to “notify the Court in writing by 5/3/2020 of a telephone number where he can be reached,” he failed to do so. Dkt. No. 37. Plaintiff also failed to file an opposition to FCA’s motion to dismiss, which was due on June 9, 2020. Dkt. No. 31. Instead, by letter motion filed on June 12, 2020, plaintiff requested “a 60 day or more” extension of time to find new counsel. Dkt. No. 39. On June 15, 2020, the Court granted Edwards’s request for an extension of time to find counsel and sua sponte extended the deadline for plaintiff’s opposition to FCA’s motion to dismiss. Dkt. No. 42. At that time, plaintiff was warned that another failure to respond would result in dismissal of this action for failure to prosecute. Id. Thereafter, plaintiff actually filed two responses in opposition to dismissal — his first having likely crossed in the mail with the scheduling order that gave him an extension. Dkt. Nos. 43, 44. FCA has since replied to those submissions. Dkt. No. 45. Finally fully briefed, the motion will be considered on the basis of the submissions without oral argument. II. BACKGROUND The following facts are taken from Edwards’s complaint, Dkt. No. 1, and are assumed true for the purpose of FCA’s motion to dismiss. In October 2016, Edwards bought a new Ram 2500 pickup truck after seeing an advertising campaign prepared by FCA and disseminated through its dealer network. Compl. 8. Although plaintiff seems to have enjoyed two years of safe operation, on October 8, 2018, while driving along State Route 12 in Deerfield, New York, “he lost control of the vehicle and travelled [sic] off the roadway and down a slope before colliding head-on into a tree.” Id. 9. Plaintiff alleges that the seatbelt and airbags in the truck failed to work correctly, causing or contributing to severe and lasting injuries. Id. 10. III. LEGAL STANDARD Rule 12(b)(2) “permits a defendant to challenge a court’s personal jurisdiction over it prior to the filing of an answer or the commencement of discovery.” A.W.L.I. Grp., Inc. v. Amber Freight Shipping Lines, 828 F. Supp. 2d 557, 562 (E.D.N.Y. 2011). Once a 12(b)(2) challenge is asserted, “the plaintiff bears the burden of establishing that the court has jurisdiction over the defendant.” Bank Brussels Lambert v. Fiddler Gonzalez & Rodriguez, 171 F.3d 779, 784 (2d Cir. 1999). “A court has ‘considerable procedural leeway’ on a Rule 12(b)(2) motion, and may decide it on the basis of affidavits alone, permit discovery in aid of the motion, or conduct an evidentiary hearing.” Zornoza v. Terraform Global, Inc., 419 F. Supp. 3d 715, 726 (S.D.N.Y. 2019) (quoting Dorchester Fin. Sec., Inc. v. Banco BRJ, S.A., 722 F.3d 81, 85 (2d Cir. 2013) (per curiam)). Indeed, “[i]t is well settled under Second Circuit law that, even where plaintiff has not made a prima facie showing of personal jurisdiction, a court may still order discovery, in its discretion, when it concludes that the plaintiff may be able to establish jurisdiction if given the opportunity to develop a full factual record.” Leon v. Shmukler, 992 F. Supp. 2d 179, 194 (E.D.N.Y. 2014). “Where a court opts to determine the jurisdictional issue without an evidentiary hearing or discovery, a plaintiff need make only a prima facie showing of jurisdiction through its own affidavits and supporting materials.” Brady v. Basic Research, L.L.C., 101 F. Supp. 3d 217, 229 (E.D.N.Y. 2015) (cleaned up). “When, however, a court permits the parties to engage in jurisdictional discovery, the party seeking to establish jurisdiction bears ‘the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that personal jurisdiction exists.’” Id. In either case, “[t]he court construes any pleadings and affidavits in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and resolves all doubts in plaintiff’s favor.” Zornoza, 419 F. Supp. 3d at 726. “However, courts should ‘not draw argumentative inferences in the plaintiff’s favor’ or ‘accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation.’” Id. (citation omitted). In sum, plaintiff’s “prima facie showing must include an averment of facts that, if credited by the ultimate trier of fact, would suffice to establish jurisdiction over the defendant.” Id. (cleaned up). IV. DISCUSSION FCA contends that the complaint must be dismissed because FCA is not subject to personal jurisdiction in New York. Defs.’ Mem., Dkt. No. 13-6 at 8.1 According to FCA, Edwards’s complaint alleges the existence of general personal jurisdiction in this forum based on the generalized, sweeping claim that FCA “engages in significant business throughout the State of New York.” Compl. 6. However, as FCA explains in its moving papers, since the Supreme Court’s decision in Daimler AG v. Bauman, 571 U.S. 117 (2014), absent exceptional circumstances a corporation is subject to general personal jurisdiction in only two places: the state in which the entity is incorporated and the state in which the entity maintains its principal place of business. Id. at 9. Because plaintiff’s pleading acknowledges that FCA is incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in Michigan, Compl. 2, subjecting it to general personal jurisdiction in New York would run afoul of Daimler. In opposition, Edwards cites to the component of New York’s personal jurisdiction statute that permits the exercise of specific personal jurisdiction over an out-of-state corporation. Dkt. Nos. 43, 44. According to plaintiff, “FCA US LLC and [its] affiliates operate[ ] approximately 55 to 60 dealerships throughout the state, employing hundreds if not thousands of employees, marketing and selling tens of thousands of vehicles, in New York through consistent, systematic and substantial we media campaigns, print and television advertising.” Dkt. No. 44 at 2. In plaintiff’s view, “FCA has a long history of selling and servicing vehicles in New York” and therefore “[it] is a reasonable expectation that FCA would expect to have consequences where ever vehicles are sold regardless of what state a vehicle was purchased in.” Id. FCA replies that, to the extent Edwards suggests it has consented to be sued in New York by virtue of its registration as a foreign corporation, that theory has not been pleaded in the complaint (and has been rejected by the Second Circuit, anyway). Def.’s Reply, Dkt. No. 45 at 3-4. FCA further argues that the pickup truck was manufactured and assembled in Saltillo, Mexico and shipped to a dealership in Ontario, Canada. Id. at 6; see also Def.’s Mem. at 11. Thus, the “mere fact that the truck may have been subsequently driven into and/or sold used in New York by a third-party — wholly unrelated to FCA US’s actions — is insufficient to establish specific jurisdiction over FCA US.” Def.’s Mem. at 11. Where, as here, subject matter jurisdiction rests on diversity of citizenship, personal jurisdiction is determined by the law of the state in which the district court sits. See, e.g., Best Van Lines, Inc. v. Walker, 490 F.3d 239, 242 (2d Cir. 2007). This determination involves a two-step process: first, the plaintiff must identify a statutory basis for the exercise of personal jurisdiction over the defendant; and second, the court must decide whether the exercise of jurisdiction on that basis would run afoul of constitutional due process principles. Minholz, 227 F. Supp. 3d at 256. As the parties’ briefing makes clear, there are two types of personal jurisdiction that can be asserted over a corporate defendant. “These are called specific (also called ‘case-linked’) jurisdiction and general (or ‘all-purpose’) jurisdiction. Specific jurisdiction is available when the cause of action sued upon arises out of the defendant’s activities in a state. General jurisdiction, in contrast, permits a court to adjudicate any cause of action against the corporate defendant, wherever arising, and whoever the plaintiff.” Brown v. Lockheed Martin Corp., 814 F.3d 619, 624 (2d Cir. 2016). Upon review of the parties’ submissions, Edwards has not established that the exercise of general or specific personal jurisdiction is appropriate in this forum. Under New York law, a foreign (or out-of-state) corporation is subject to general personal jurisdiction if it is “engaged in such a continuous and systematic course of ‘doing business’ in New York as to warrant a finding of its ‘presence’ in the state.” A.W.L.I. Grp., Inc., 828 F. Supp. 2d at 563 (citation omitted). “[A] corporation is ‘doing business’ and is therefore ‘present’ in New York and subject to personal jurisdiction with respect to any cause of action, related or unrelated to the New York contacts, if it does business in New York not occasionally or casually, but with a fair measure of permanence and continuity.” Wiwa v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 226 F.3d 88, 95 (2d Cir. 2000) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). “In assessing whether a corporation’s business is conducted ‘with a fair measure of permanence and continuity,’ the following non-dispositive factors among others are considered: ‘(1) the existence of an office in New York; (2) the solicitation of business in New York; (3) the presence of bank accounts or other property in New York; and (4) the presence of employees or agents in New York.” JetBlue Airways Corp. v. Helferich Patent Licensing, LLC, 960 F. Supp. 2d 383, 391 (E.D.N.Y. 2013) (quoting Li v. Hock, 371 F. App’x 171, 174 (2d Cir. 2010) (summary order)). Importantly, however, after the Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Daimler, it is “incredibly difficult to establish general jurisdiction in a forum other than the place of incorporation or principal place of business.” Monkton Ins. Servs., Ltd. v. Ritter, 786 F.3d 429, 432 (5th Cir. 2014); see also Brown, 814 F.3d at 627 (“[I]n our view Daimler established that, except in a truly ‘exceptional’ case, a corporate defendant may be treated as ‘essentially at home’ only where it is incorporated or maintains its principal place of business — the ‘paradigm’ cases.”). Edwards claims, upon information and belief, that FCA and its affiliates operate dealerships throughout the state and employed “hundreds if not thousands of employees.” Pl.’s Opp’n at 2. But this statement elides the critical distinction between a parent corporation and its subsidiary or affiliate. See, e.g., Franklin v. Coloplast Corp., 2019 WL 5307085, at *3 (N.D.N.Y. Oct. 21, 2019) (“[T]he subsidiary’s presence within New York state alone does not establish the parent’s presence.” ); Stroud v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 91 F. Supp. 3d 381, 388 (E.D.N.Y. 2015) (noting same). Thus, even if true, that fact alone would not satisfy the general personal jurisdiction inquiry. On the other side of the ledger, FCA’s evidentiary submissions establish that the pickup truck at the heart of this litigation was manufactured and assembled in Mexico and shipped to an independent dealership in Canada. Crim mins Decl., Dkt. No. 13-3
