In a published decision issued on February 5, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit addressed when the design and operation of a commercial website can subject its out-of-state owner to specific personal jurisdiction in New Hampshire. The case arises from allegations that Armslist, LLC’s online firearms marketplace facilitated the illegal sale of a gun in New Hampshire later used to shoot a Boston police officer.

The First Circuit affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded the district court’s dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction. While agreeing that Armslist’s contacts with New Hampshire through 2016 did not satisfy the “purposeful availment” requirement, the court held that later evidence of extensive New Hampshire–specific listings on the site from 2018 onward, considered together with the site’s design and revenue model, was sufficient to make a prima facie showing of purposeful availment. The court left the “relatedness” and “reasonableness” prongs of the specific-jurisdiction test to be addressed by the district court on remand and affirmed the denial of jurisdictional discovery.

Factual Background

Armslist, a Pennsylvania-based company, operates Armslist.com, an online marketplace for firearms and related products. The plaintiffs, Kurt and Janella Stokinger, allege that Armslist’s website design and features “actively encouraged, assisted, and profited from” illegal private firearms transactions.

According to the complaint, in 2015 a firearm was listed for sale on Armslist.com and sold in New Hampshire. In 2016, that firearm was allegedly used in a shooting in Boston that seriously injured Officer Kurt Stokinger. The plaintiffs assert that Armslist’s design choices—such as geographic labeling of listings, guidance to users on how to list items “locally,” and a state-based filtering mechanism for buyers—were intended to and did facilitate this New Hampshire sale.

The plaintiffs first sued Armslist and other defendants in Massachusetts Superior Court in 2018 under Massachusetts law, asserting negligence, aiding and abetting tortious conduct, and public nuisance. Armslist moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and separately under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), 47 U.S.C. § 230. In March 2020, the Massachusetts court granted the CDA motion without reaching personal jurisdiction. It later permitted jurisdictional discovery (largely focused on Massachusetts but including some New Hampshire-related discovery), and in December 2021 dismissed Armslist for lack of personal jurisdiction in Massachusetts.

In September 2023, the Stokingers filed a new action in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire, now asserting New Hampshire law claims for negligence, aiding and abetting tortious and illegal conduct, public nuisance, loss of spousal consortium, and loss of support, all predicated on Armslist’s alleged role in facilitating the 2015 New Hampshire sale of the gun used in the 2016 shooting.

Procedural History

In the New Hampshire federal action, Armslist filed two motions to dismiss:

• one for lack of personal jurisdiction, and

• one on several alternative grounds, including the New Hampshire statute of limitations, res judicata, collateral estoppel, and the CDA.

The plaintiffs opposed the personal-jurisdiction motion and, in the alternative, requested jurisdictional discovery, contending that Armslist’s motion relied on outdated, self-serving facts and that relevant evidence of Armslist’s New Hampshire contacts was uniquely within Armslist’s control.

The district court:

• denied the request for jurisdictional discovery;
• granted the motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction on the ground that Armslist had not purposefully availed itself of New Hampshire’s laws; and
• denied the second motion to dismiss as moot.

The plaintiffs appealed. Armslist did not seek affirmance on the alternative substantive grounds raised in its second motion to dismiss.

Legal Framework

Sitting in diversity, the district court was required to apply New Hampshire’s long-arm statute and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Because New Hampshire’s long-arm statute extends to the limits of federal due process, the question reduced to whether asserting jurisdiction over Armslist comports with constitutional due process.

Under due process, a defendant must have “minimum contacts” with the forum such that maintaining the suit does not offend “traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.” Those contacts may support either general or specific jurisdiction; the plaintiffs relied solely on specific jurisdiction.

The First Circuit applies a three-part specific-jurisdiction test:

• Relatedness – each claim must “directly arise out of or relate to” the defendant’s forum contacts;
• Purposeful availment – the contacts must represent a voluntary, foreseeable “purposeful availment of the privilege of conducting activities in the forum state”; and
• Reasonableness – exercising jurisdiction must be ultimately reasonable.

Because the district court ruled before discovery or an evidentiary hearing, the plaintiffs needed only to make a prima facie showing of specific jurisdiction, with properly supported factual proffers accepted as true.

District Court’s Approach

The district court skipped the relatedness prong and assumed, for purposes of its analysis, that the plaintiffs’ claims were related to the asserted contacts. It held that the plaintiffs had failed to make a prima facie showing of purposeful availment and dismissed solely on that ground.

The court also questioned the relevance of Armslist’s post-2016 contacts with New Hampshire—specifically, evidence that from 2018 onward there were on average 16,000 firearms listings per year on Armslist.com tagged as “New Hampshire”—noting First Circuit precedent that contacts arising after the cause of action usually are not relevant. The plaintiffs argued that their public nuisance claim was a “continuing tort” that made these later contacts relevant, but the district court ultimately held that even assuming relevance, the 2018-onward contacts did not establish purposeful availment.

First Circuit’s Analysis

A. Purposeful Availment: Pre‑2017 Contacts

The First Circuit agreed with the district court that Armslist’s contacts with New Hampshire through 2016 did not make out a prima facie case of purposeful availment.

The plaintiffs emphasized three features of Armslist.com:

• an FAQ instructing users to list firearms in the location where they and the item are physically located, explaining that if someone finds the listing “in their home location, they assume they can go to your location and make a deal”;

• a mechanism for sellers to tag listings with a state-specific geographic label (e.g., New Hampshire); and

• a geographic-filtering tool allowing buyers to search for listings by state so they could find firearms where “they live.” 

The plaintiffs argued that these features showed Armslist intentionally targeted New Hampshire by designing the site to facilitate “local” transactions, including New Hampshire transactions, and by specifically enabling “New Hampshire” listings.

Armslist countered that nothing in the design made a transaction more likely in New Hampshire than in any other state; the site was equally accessible nationwide and its location tools were “ubiquitous” features benefiting users in all states without favoring any particular one.

Relying on its recent decision in Rosenthal v. Bloomingdales.com, the First Circuit held that a website’s ability to facilitate forum contacts, without more, is insufficient to show purposeful availment. In Rosenthal, the court rejected jurisdiction where a retailer’s website could track users’ locations and allow searches for nearby stores, because the plaintiff failed to show that the retailer knew it was actually engaging in the challenged conduct in the forum state at the relevant time.

Applying Rosenthal, the court concluded that merely showing that Armslist’s site was capable of facilitating firearm sales in New Hampshire, and was designed to foster “local” transactions generally, did not demonstrate that Armslist deliberately targeted New Hampshire as opposed to the country as a whole. In the absence of evidence that Armslist knew its design was in fact generating New Hampshire-based transactions during the relevant period, the design features alone did not satisfy purposeful availment.

Advertising revenue. The plaintiffs also pointed to Armslist’s generation of advertising revenue from site traffic. The court found this theory deficient for the same reason: it showed only that Armslist could earn revenue from visitors in any state, not that it knew it was generating revenue from New Hampshire-based users in a way that would amount to intentionally targeting that state. To the extent plaintiffs invoked subscription fees from New Hampshire “premium vendors,” the court deemed any distinct argument based on that theory waived for lack of development on appeal.

On this record, the court held that pre‑2017 evidence—standing alone—failed to show that Armslist had purposefully availed itself of New Hampshire’s laws.

Post‑2017 “New Hampshire” Listings and Purposeful Availment

The analysis changed when the court considered evidence that, starting in 2018, Armslist.com hosted an average of 16,000 listings per year for firearms for sale in New Hampshire, each tagged with a New Hampshire geographic label.

The court acknowledged that these contacts occurred years after the 2015 sale and 2016 shooting underlying the claims, raising a “substantial question” about their relevance under the relatedness prong. Nevertheless, assuming their relevance for purposes of the purposeful-availment analysis (as the district court had done), the First Circuit found that this evidence, combined with the site’s design and revenue model, sufficed to make a prima facie showing of purposeful availment:

• Knowledge of forum use. The volume of New Hampshire–tagged listings from 2018 onward constituted evidence that Armslist knew its website was actually being used repeatedly by sellers seeking to transact in New Hampshire. This went beyond mere foreseeability or capacity; it showed that Armslist “knew that it was intentionally operating its website” to facilitate firearm sales in that state.
  
  
• Voluntary, targeted conduct. Armslist was not merely a passive platform. It affirmatively implemented and maintained a state-specific filtering mechanism, and its own FAQ encouraged sellers to list in the location where they and the firearm were physically located so that “local” buyers could “go to your location and make a deal.” In the court’s view, this design increased the likelihood that a New Hampshire–based listing would result in a sale consummated in New Hampshire, reflecting a voluntary effort to facilitate in-state transactions rather than simply accepting traffic from wherever it arrived.
  
  
• Economic benefit. The court noted that Armslist profited from advertising impressions generated by those thousands of New Hampshire-tagged listings, and the district court had reasonably inferred that Armslist derived at least some advertising revenue from these New Hampshire-focused activities.

Taken together, these facts supported an inference that Armslist deliberately targeted New Hampshire as a market. That Armslist similarly targeted all other states did not negate its targeting of New Hampshire; a defendant does not escape specific jurisdiction simply because it intentionally engages with multiple states rather than one.

The court distinguished the principal out-of-circuit cases on which Armslist relied, including:

• Fidrych v. Marriott International, Inc. (4th Cir.), where a hotel website’s inclusion of South Carolina in a drop-down state menu showed only nationwide accessibility and willingness to accept reservations from that state, without evidence that the site was used to create forum-specific injuries or that the defendant specifically knew of such use; and
• NexLearn, LLC v. Allen Interactions, Inc. (Fed. Cir.), where there was no evidence that any Kansas resident had ever accessed the defendant’s site or that the site had facilitated the allegedly infringing activity in Kansas.

By contrast, the record here included evidence that thousands of New Hampshire–specific listings appeared annually from 2018 on, supporting an inference that the site was in fact facilitating New Hampshire firearm sales with Armslist’s knowledge.

C. Relatedness and Reasonableness Left for the District Court

Although the court held that the plaintiffs had made a prima facie showing of purposeful availment when post‑2017 evidence was considered, it emphasized that specific jurisdiction requires all three prongs: relatedness, purposeful availment, and reasonableness.

It is “hardly evident,” the court noted, that claims based on a 2015 sale and a 2016 shooting “directly arise out of or relate to” New Hampshire listings posted years later. The parties had briefed relatedness only superficially, and the district court had not ruled on that issue.

Accordingly, the First Circuit:

• vacated the district court’s finding of no purposeful availment to the extent it failed to credit the 2018-onward New Hampshire listings;
• left the relatedness and reasonableness prongs unresolved; and
• remanded for the district court to consider in the first instance whether the post‑2017 New Hampshire contacts that established purposeful availment are sufficiently related to the plaintiffs’ New Hampshire-law claims, and whether exercising jurisdiction would be reasonable.

D. Jurisdictional Discovery

As an alternative argument, the plaintiffs challenged the denial of jurisdictional discovery. The First Circuit affirmed that denial.

Standard of review. Denials of jurisdictional discovery are reviewed for abuse of discretion and are overturned only upon a clear showing that the decision was plainly wrong and substantially prejudicial.

Scope and specificity of request. The plaintiffs did not file a stand-alone motion for jurisdictional discovery. Instead, they included a short, generalized request in their opposition to the motion to dismiss, asserting that Armslist’s jurisdictional showing relied on “self-serving” and outdated facts and that plaintiffs should be “entitled to probe” those assertions and obtain “updated evidence.” The district court found this request deficient because it did not identify what discovery was sought or explain how it would establish jurisdiction.

At the motion hearing, plaintiffs’ counsel clarified they sought discovery into Armslist’s “post-tort contacts with New Hampshire,” but the district court concluded even this clarification failed to offer “factual allegations suggesting with reasonable particularity the possible existence of contacts” sufficient to confer jurisdiction.

On appeal, the plaintiffs pointed to two exchanges at the hearing where counsel noted that they would “like to find out” whether the geographic-filtering menu had been used in connection with the firearm at issue and that they would “like to know” how many New Hampshire sellers had listings around the time of the alleged tort. The First Circuit held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to treat these remarks as a properly particularized motion for jurisdictional discovery.

The court emphasized:

• Plaintiffs bore the burden to “present facts to the court which show why jurisdiction would be found if discovery were permitted,” and they failed to do so.
• Their request remained “skeletal,” and their belated, informal comments at argument did not cure the lack of specificity required under both First Circuit authority and Rule 7(b)(1)’s requirement that motions state grounds “with particularity.”

On this record, the district court’s refusal to order jurisdictional discovery was neither plainly wrong nor prejudicial.

Disposition

The First Circuit:

• affirmed in part the district court’s dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction, agreeing that Armslist had not purposefully availed itself of New Hampshire based on contacts through 2016;
• vacated in part the district court’s no-purposeful-availment determination in light of the plaintiffs’ evidence that Armslist.com carried an average of 16,000 New Hampshire‑tagged listings per year from 2018 onward, which, combined with the site’s design and revenue model, established a prima facie case of purposeful availment;
• affirmed the denial of jurisdictional discovery; and
• remanded for further proceedings, including resolution of the relatedness and reasonableness prongs of the specific-jurisdiction inquiry and any remaining issues in Armslist’s alternative motion to dismiss (such as the statute of limitations, res judicata, collateral estoppel, and CDA defenses), as appropriate.

Implications

This decision further develops First Circuit doctrine on personal jurisdiction over out-of-state website operators:

• Mere capacity or foreseeability that a site can be accessed in a forum state, or the presence of standard geographic tools and drop-down menus, will not alone establish purposeful availment, even when the site is designed for “local” transactions.
• Evidence that a defendant knows its site is in fact being used at scale to conduct transactions in a particular state—especially where the site’s design is structured to foster in-state deals and the operator profits from that activity—may be sufficient to show purposeful availment.
• However, plaintiffs must still establish that their claims “directly arise out of or relate to” those forum contacts, a question that remains unresolved here and may pose a significant hurdle when the actionable events predate the bulk of the forum contacts.
• Litigants seeking jurisdictional discovery must articulate, with reasonable particularity, what jurisdictional facts they seek and how those facts would, if obtained, establish jurisdiction; conclusory assertions that discovery is needed to “probe” a defendant’s motion will not suffice.

Entities operating nationwide or multi-state online marketplaces—particularly in regulated areas such as firearms—should be aware that extensive, state-specific usage of their platforms, combined with design features that steer users toward in-state transactions and generate localized revenue, may support a finding of purposeful availment, even where the platform itself is based elsewhere. At the same time, the temporal alignment between forum contacts and alleged harms remains crucial, and courts may closely scrutinize whether later-acquired forum contacts can support jurisdiction over earlier events.