E. F. Hutton & Co. v. Tourism & Development Corp.

455 F. Supp. 981, 1978 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16179
CourtDistrict Court, D. Rhode Island
DecidedAugust 4, 1978
DocketCiv. A. 75-0169
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 455 F. Supp. 981 (E. F. Hutton & Co. v. Tourism & Development Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Rhode Island primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
E. F. Hutton & Co. v. Tourism & Development Corp., 455 F. Supp. 981, 1978 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16179 (D.R.I. 1978).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

PETTINE, Chief Judge.

Tourism & Development Corporation (Tourism), a Rhode Island Corporation, joined First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Largo (First Federal), a Florida Corporation, as party defendant; First Federal now moves pursuant to the provisions of Rule 12(b)(2) of the Fed.R.Civ.P. to dismiss this action and to quash service of process claiming that this Court lacks in personam jurisdiction over it.

The controversy centers around financing arrangements between the parties for a proposed Jai Alai facility in Newport, Rhode Island. On April 3, 1974, the plaintiff E. F. Hutton & Co., Inc. (Hutton), a New York Corporation from New York, phoned First Federal in Florida soliciting financing for Tourism; and as a result of this conversation, Hutton mailed to First Federal a completed loan application signed by Allen Cat-low, President of Tourism. First Federal approved this loan application at a meeting of its loan committee held in Florida on April 5, 1974; on April 8,1974, First Federal issued a letter of commitment to Hutton for a $5,000,000 loan to Tourism conditioned on the fulfillment of certain requirements cited in the letter and the payment of $55,-000 by Tourism. On April 10, 1974, Hutton and the New York Security Placement Corporation entered into a contract with Tourism for the arrangement of financing for the Jai Alai facility whereupon Hutton presented First Federal’s commitment to Tourism. On the same date of April 10, a phone conversation between the senior vice president of First Federal in Florida and the executive vice president of Tourism in Rhode Island took place concerning certain appraisals and other aspects of the project. On April 18, 1974, Tourism mailed the $55,-000 commitment fee to First Federal in the form of a check drawn on the First Bank and Trust Company of Providence, Rhode Island. This ' check was subsequently cashed by First Federal. On May 14, 1974, Tourism mailed to First Federal information requested by First Federal, which information was supplemented by another letter from Tourism to First Federal on June 3,1974. On June 7,1974, First Federal wrote to Tourism stating that further information was needed for approval of the property in Rhode Island on which the project was to be constructed. Following this last letter, there was a series of phone calls; namely, June 13, 1974 from First Federal to Tourism; June 17, 1974, a telephone conversation, between the executive vice president of First Federal and the President of the Newport National Bank, Newport, Rhode Island, concerning the Jai Alai resulting in the President of the Newport National Bank mailing to First Federal news articles concerning the Jai Alai, and *983 copies of the Newport National Bank December 1973 statement and statement of Old Colony Co-operative Bank, their major stockholder; June 19, 1974, a phone conversation between a Rhode Island newspaper reporter and an officer of First Federal concerning the likelihood of success such a project would have in Rhode Island. This is the sum total of the contacts that were made with the State of Rhode Island. The loan in question was never made. 1

First Federal is a government-chartered savings and loan association in Pinellas County in the State of Florida, and though it argues its entire operation is within that state, the record shows it has engaged in extensive interstate real estate financings. An itemized list of financings for the years 1972-1975 inclusive, of real estate properties located outside Florida show it committed $35,478,300 with a paid amount of $26,-889,534.04. This same pattern of interstate business was practiced in this case with the necessary interstate correspondence and phone conversations to effectuate the financial arrangement sought by the parties.

The Rhode Island “long-arm” statute, § 9-5-33, Gen.Laws R.I.1956 as amended, is the statutory basis for this Court’s jurisdiction over the non-resident defendant. “[F]rom the plain language of the statute it will be seen that the legislature of Rhode Island has chosen to exercise jurisdiction over foreign corporations up to the constitutional limitations.” Del Sesto v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 201 F.Supp. 879 (D.R.I. 1962). The Rhode Island Supreme Court reaffirmed this position in Conn. v. ITT Aetna Financing Company, et al., 105 R.I. 397, 252 A.2d 184 (1969), writing:

The long-arm statute . . made foreign corporations and nonresident individuals having the necessary “minimum contacts” with this state amenable to the jurisdiction of our courts subject only to whatever limitations might be imposed by the constitution or laws of the United States; in substance and in effect, it empowers our courts “ . . .to exercise jurisdiction over foreign corporations up to the constitutional limitation.” [citing Del Sesto v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., supra ].

In Scott Brass, Inc. v. Wire and Metal Specialties Corp., 344 F.Supp. 711 (D.R.I.1972), this Court, quoting the language from ITT Aetna Financing Co., elaborated:

Although the constitutional limitations on in personam jurisdiction are of federal origin, the question of “minimum contacts” for jurisdictional purposes must be decided in accordance with the law of the state in which the court sits, Westphal v. Stone Manufacturing Co. (D.R.I.1969), 305 F.Supp. 1187, including the experience of state courts as reflected in reported case law. In Conn. v. ITT Aetna Finance Company, supra, the Rhode Island Supreme Court addressed itself, 252 A.2d at 187, to the question of standards for judging “minimum contacts”:

(N)either the (long arm) statute nor the decisions from which it stems have given us any readily discernible guidelines for determining what are ‘minimum contacts,’ or for deciding what is encompassed within ‘traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.’ At best these are illusive phrases . (T)he task of determining when an exercise of jurisdiction over a nonresident is permissible and when impermissible ‘ . . will require an evolutionary process rather than a quick definitive statement, as these terms involve subjective judgments that must be based upon a multitude of variant factors as they are presented in a multitude of cases. The existence or nonexistence of the necessary ‘minimum contacts’ to justify the upholding of personal jurisdiction over foreign cor *984 porations under the Fourteenth Amendment as interpreted in the International Shoe Company case must obviously be worked out with reference to the facts of a particular case rather than in a statement of dogmatic rules of all-inclusive principles.’ Velandra v. Regie Nationale Des Usines Renault, 6 Cir., 336 F.2d 292, 295.
It is within the frame of this process that we inquire whether (the defendants) had sufficient ‘minimum contacts’ with this state to permit our courts to exercise in personam jurisdiction over them. Id. at 713.

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455 F. Supp. 981, 1978 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16179, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/e-f-hutton-co-v-tourism-development-corp-rid-1978.