United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 17-2620 GERALD D. W. NORTH, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UBIQUITY, INC., a Nevada Corporation, f/k/a, UBIQUITY BROADCAST CORPORATION, a Delaware Corporation, f/k/a UBIQUITY HOLDING INC., a Delaware Corporation, Defendant-Appellee. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 1:16-cv-5698 — Elaine E. Bucklo, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED MAY 31, 2023 — DECIDED JUNE 26, 2023 ____________________

Before ROVNER, HAMILTON, and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge. For the better part of a decade Ger- ald North and Ubiquity, Inc. have been at loggerheads over the alleged breach of a 2006 contract. After litigating for sev- eral years in Arizona state court, North filed a second lawsuit alleging the exact same breach of contract—this time in a fed- eral district court in Illinois. But the parties’ only connection 2 No. 17-2620 to Illinois was the 2006 contract, which Ubiquity signed with North’s former Chicago-based firm, North & Associates, ra- ther than with North himself. The district court concluded that the contract alone was insufficient to establish personal jurisdiction over Ubiquity, so it dismissed the case. We agree. In North’s view, though, that should not be the end of the story. Invoking 28 U.S.C. § 1631, he contends the district court ought to have considered transferring the case to the Central District of California (which would have had general personal jurisdiction over Ubiquity, a California firm) instead of dis- missing it outright. North is correct that the district court should have at least considered transfer before dismissing the action for lack of personal jurisdiction. But North’s own rep- resentations before the district court would have fatally un- dermined his request that the court transfer the case. We therefore see no reason to remand for further analysis, so we affirm the district court’s judgment for Ubiquity. I A In 2006 Ubiquity, an upstart telecommunications com- pany based in southern California, sought to expand its busi- ness nationwide. It approached Gerald North, a retired anti- trust and patent lawyer, in its effort to connect with strategic partners in the telecommunications industry. Ubiquity ulti- mately entered into a contract with North’s Illinois firm, North & Associates, in which North agreed to connect Ubiq- uity to some of his own industry contacts. North executed the contract in Arizona, where he lived, on behalf of his firm. Part of the contract involved Ubiquity promising to trans- fer 1.5% of its outstanding shares to North & Associates as a No. 17-2620 3 “commencement fee”—an equity award that would be paid regardless of how long the partnership between them lasted. As it turned out, their affiliation proved short-lived. Ubiquity terminated the agreement in February 2007, only two months after signing the contract. At that time Ubiquity had not yet transferred its shares to North & Associates. It never did. At first North did nothing to attempt to enforce the con- tract. For several years he thought he could not recover any damages because Ubiquity stock was not yet worth anything. That all changed in 2013 when Ubiquity went public. Recog- nizing the newfound value of the equity Ubiquity had prom- ised, North sent a letter demanding specific performance on the contract in February 2014. Ubiquity refused to issue North any shares. So in June 2014 North sued Ubiquity f