Charter Plane Company Moves to Dismiss or Transfer Seized Hemp Case

A lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina over a shipping company's alleged gross negligence in handling a hemp shipment should be tossed for lack of jurisdiction, defendant Planet Nine Private Air said in a Sept. 1 brief. If the court decides not to dismiss the matter, it should be transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, since that is where Planet Nine primarily does business and the signing of the contract in dispute was held there, the brief said (We CBD, LLC et al. v. Plante Nine Private Air, LLC, W.D.N.C. #21-00352).

Oregon-based hemp distributor We CBD, the plaintiff in the matter, had signed an agreement with Planet Nine to export a hemp shipment from Oregon to Switzerland. The flight containing the shipment stopped to refuel in North Carolina, where the hemp aboard was then seized by CBP. Planet Nine emailed the customs agency with a request for a chartered flight that was heading to Switzerland but failed to list any cargo aboard the flight. CBP then conducted a border search and found 93 duffel or trash bags filled with hemp, marijuana or both from We CBD. A separate lawsuit exists in the same district court over the seized shipment (see 2108270023).

We CBD then launched its case in the North Carolina district court, alleging "negligence, gross negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, negligent misrepresentation, and unfair and deceptive trade practices." Planet Nine then moved to dismiss the case.

"Because the allegations in the Complaint demonstrate that North Carolina has only incidental and temporary connections to this dispute, Planet Nine does not have sufficient contacts with this forum to be subjected to personal jurisdiction in this Court," the brief said. We CBD must prove that jurisdiction is authorized by the state's long-arm statute and that it complies with the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause, which We CBD fails to do, Planet Nine argued.