Key Points

  • The Appellate Division, First Department, unanimously reversed an order denying a Chinese toymaker's CPLR 3211(a)(8) motion and dismissed a California company's breach-of-contract complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction.
  • The court held that the toymaker's attendance at the 2025 New York City Toy Fair and solicitation of business there was not purposeful activity under CPLR 302(a)(1), because no evidence showed sales or continuing relationships with New York.
  • The court held that a Toy Fair conversation reiterating a refusal to perform could not supply the required substantial relationship, because the alleged breach occurred earlier in a February 2025 email, and under Paterno post-harm contacts cannot ground jurisdiction.
  • The court did not reach the toymaker's fair-play-and-substantial-justice argument or the plaintiff's request for jurisdictional discovery.

A New York appeals court on Oct. 27 dismissed a California company's breach-of-contract suit against a Chinese toy manufacturer, holding that the manufacturer's trip to the 2025 New York City Toy Fair, and a conversation at the plaintiff's booth there, did not give the state's courts power over it.

A five-justice panel of the Appellate Division, First Department, unanimously reversed a trial-level ruling that had let the case proceed. The unsigned decision granted the motion to dismiss filed by Zhejiang Jiajiao Holdings Group Co., Ltd., a maker of magnetic and educational toys that also does business under names including Kebo, Mag-Wisdom, Playmager and Joitop. The panel directed the clerk to enter judgment dismissing the complaint brought by Laltitude LLC.

The ruling rested on two findings under CPLR 302(a)(1), New York's long-arm statute. The panel held that attending a trade show and soliciting business there was not enough without evidence of sales or continuing New York relationships. It also held that the booth conversation came after the alleged breach and so could not tie the claim to New York.

According to the decision, Laltitude alleged that it entered into a contract with the toymaker in December 2019 under which Laltitude was assigned certain intellectual property the toymaker had previously owned. The contract required both sides to execute and deliver requested documents to complete the transactions it covered. The contract was not drafted, negotiated or executed in New York, the panel noted.

Laltitude alleged that in February 2025 the toymaker failed to provide certified documents Laltitude needed to claim priority over a foreign patent application. When Laltitude asked for the certifications, the toymaker sent an email saying it would not provide them unless Laltitude agreed to new consideration and terms, according to the decision.

Both companies then attended the Toy Fair in March 2025. Laltitude alleged that a representative of the toymaker visited its booth and repeated that the certifications would not come without new consideration and additional commercial terms. Laltitude then sued in Supreme Court, New York County.

The toymaker moved to dismiss under CPLR 3211(a)(8) for lack of personal jurisdiction. Kathleen Waterman-Marshall denied the motion in an order entered on or about Dec. 3, 2025, and the toymaker appealed.

The panel, made up of Justices Webber, who presided, Kapnick, Shulman, Pitt-Burke and Hagler, began with the burden of proof. On a motion like this one, the decision said, "the plaintiff has the burden of presenting sufficient evidence, through affidavits and relevant documents, to establish jurisdiction." Under the long-arm provision, a court may reach a nondomiciliary that has purposefully transacted business within the state when there is "a substantial relationship between the transaction and the claim asserted," the panel wrote, quoting the 2014 decision in Paterno v. Laser Spine Institute.

The decision recited that the toymaker does not maintain offices, employees, telephone listings, a mailing address or bank accounts in New York. Its analysis of the toymaker's New York activity centered on the Toy Fair.

The panel held that Laltitude "failed to demonstrate that defendant's attendance at the Toy Fair and solicitation of business qualified as engaging in purposeful activity." The reason, the panel wrote, was that "there was no evidence submitted that defendant made any sales or established continuing relationships with New York during its visit." It cited Paterno and the First Department's 2003 ruling in O'Brien v. Hackensack University Medical Center.

The panel then found a separate problem in the timing of the booth visit. Quoting Paterno, it wrote that contacts after the date of the alleged harm "cannot be the basis to establish [the] defendant's relationship with New York." Laltitude itself alleged that the breach occurred in the February 2025 email, before the companies met at the fair.

The panel concluded that "the meeting at the Toy Fair in which defendant allegedly reiterated its refusal to perform under the contract cannot serve as the basis to establish defendant's relationship with New York."

Having resolved the appeal under the statute, the panel did not decide the toymaker's further argument that exercising jurisdiction over it would not comport with "traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice."

Nor did the panel rule on Laltitude's request for jurisdictional discovery. Given its "determination that plaintiff failed to show that defendant's New York contacts are substantially related to its breach of contract claim," the panel wrote, it did not need to reach that request. It cited its own 2024 decision in Dragons 516 Ltd. v. Knights Genesis Investment Ltd.

Jiajie Cao of Kevin Kerveng Tung, P.C., in Flushing, represented the toymaker. Laltitude was represented by Paul L. Fraulo of Bochner PLLC in New York.

The reversal was ordered on the law and without costs to either side. The panel directed the clerk to enter judgment accordingly, formally dismissing Laltitude's complaint. The decision, 2026 NY Slip Op 06249 (Appeal No. 7377), is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication in the Official Reports.