Halstead Hospital, Inc., Plaintiff/appellant/cross-Appellee v. Northern Bank Note Company, Defendant/appellee/cross-Appellant

680 F.2d 1307, 33 U.C.C. Rep. Serv. (West) 1665, 1982 U.S. App. LEXIS 18160
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedJune 21, 1982
Docket80-1652, 80-1678
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 680 F.2d 1307 (Halstead Hospital, Inc., Plaintiff/appellant/cross-Appellee v. Northern Bank Note Company, Defendant/appellee/cross-Appellant) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Halstead Hospital, Inc., Plaintiff/appellant/cross-Appellee v. Northern Bank Note Company, Defendant/appellee/cross-Appellant, 680 F.2d 1307, 33 U.C.C. Rep. Serv. (West) 1665, 1982 U.S. App. LEXIS 18160 (10th Cir. 1982).

Opinion

SETH, Chief Judge.

Halstead Hospital, Inc. commenced a diversity suit alleging breach of contract by the failure of Northern Bank Note Company to deliver printed bond forms in time for a bond closing in New York City. Trial was to the district judge and Halstead obtained a judgment. The trial court, however, sustained defendant’s post-judgment motion and dismissed the action for lack of in per-sonam jurisdiction over the defendant. Both parties have appealed.

Halstead is a nonprofit corporation with its principal place of business in Halstead, Kansas. Northern is an Illinois corporation with a nationwide business of printing bonds and other securities. Northern’s principal place of business is located near Chicago. Halstead planned new Hospital facilities to be financed by industrial revenue bonds. A New York City law firm was retained to serve as bond counsel and agent in the bond offering. Halstead’s bond counsel on behalf of the Hospital placed an order with Northern by telephone for the printing of bonds. A subsequent letter from bond counsel to Northern confirmed the order and stated that the bond closing was scheduled for December 18, 1975. Northern in turn accepted the order, and by letter stated, “[W]e will complete our work for shipment December 16.” The parties agreed that the bonds were to be at the Signature Company in New York on December 17 so that they could be inspected and signed prior to the formal closing on December 18.

Northern printed the bonds and boxed them in four separate cartons. Northern arranged for a common carrier or courier to pick up the four cartons on the afternoon of December 16 and deliver them to New York the next morning. However, one of the boxes of bonds did not arrive in New York until after December 18, 1975. This delay necessitated cancellation of the December 18 closing.

The jurisdictional issue is concerned with compliance with the Kansas long-arm statute (K.S.A. § 60-308) and with basic due process considerations. It is clear that the Kansas statute was intended to obtain jurisdiction to the outer limits of due process. Woodring v. Hall, 200 Kan. 597, 438 P.2d 135. The dispute centers on K.S.A. § 60-308(b)(5) which seeks to extend jurisdiction to causes of action arising from

“[ejntering into an express or implied contract, by mail or otherwise, with a resident of this state to be performed in whole or in part by either party in this state.”

The evidence in this case supports the application of the “contracts” provision of the long-arm statute quoted above. Significantly, the statute requires only that the contract “be performed in whole or in part by either party” in Kansas. As to performance obligations under the contract, it is clear that Northern expected the contract to be partially performed in Kansas to the extent that payment from Halstead in Kansas was anticipated by the parties (and so made). Additionally, Northern telephoned Halstead to obtain the signatures and seals necessary for the completion of the bond printing, which were then prepared in Kansas and sent to Illinois. Without the signatures and seals obtained from Halstead in *1310 Kansas, Northern would have been unable to perform its contractual obligation to print the bond forms. Northern’s conduct does fall within the scope of the “contracts” provision of the Kansas long-arm statute.

The trial court sustained defendant’s motion to dismiss on due process grounds. The court considered only contacts with or within the state of Kansas relating to the contract. Thus the trial court said:

“The only contacts defendant had with the State of Kansas, in connection with the Halstead Hospital contract, were the sending of invoices into Kansas, the making of a single telephone call to plaintiff in this state, and the receipt of the signatures and seals from the City of Hal-stead.”

Halstead has asserted on appeal that this was an unduly restrictive view of “minimum contacts,” and that the trial court erred in limiting its analysis of contacts to those “in connection with the Halstead Hospital contract.” Instead it asserts that the totality of Northern’s contacts in the state to include other matters and other customers should be examined.

The contract portion of the. Kansas long-arm statute (K.S.A. § 60-308(b)(5)) is a typical single act or single transaction provision. This, however, should not and cannot separate it from the due process doctrines developed in the doing business cases. The “minimum contact” element, the “traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice,” “purposefully avails itself” of the privilege of acting in the forum state, and the “reasonably foreseeable consequences” in the forum state must all be examined. In so doing it is reasonable and proper to consider the context in which the single transaction took place. We considered this portion of the Kansas statute in Pedi Bares, Inc. v. P & C Food Markets, Inc., 567 F.2d 933 (10th Cir.), and applied the usual doctrines referred to above.

When all the activities of Northern in the state of Kansas are considered there develops a pattern which demonstrates that Northern maintained continuing promotion and sales efforts in Kansas. It distributed its advertising brochures in the state, which read in part, “Our marketing area covers all fifty states, plus Guam and Puerto Rico.” A Northern representative visited Kansas in March of 1975, and attempted to meet with attorneys from a Wichita law firm engaged in municipal bond work. The Company Vice President, Mr. William D. Warner, admitted in his deposition that Northern sent direct mailings into the state and solicited business in Kansas. The record shows that Northern performed 26 printing contracts for issuers of bonds in Kansas from January 1971 through December 1975. Northern printed bonds for several Kansas cities and governmental entities, including the Wichita School District, the Kansas Turnpike Authority, and Parsons, Liberal, and Kansas City, Kansas. Northern submitted bids for Kansas work and shipped bonds to Kansas. The described activities were closely related to and part of the promotion leading to Northern’s individual dealings with Halstead in this case. This establishes sufficient “minimum contacts” so as to permit the exercise of in personam jurisdiction over Northern. They were not unilateral acts of plaintiff under Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U.S. 235, 78 S.Ct. 1228, 2 L.Ed.2d 1283, nor our Anderson v. Shiflett, 435 F.2d 1036 (10th Cir.), and Premier Corp. v. Newsom, 620 F.2d 219 (10th Cir.).

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Bluebook (online)
680 F.2d 1307, 33 U.C.C. Rep. Serv. (West) 1665, 1982 U.S. App. LEXIS 18160, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/halstead-hospital-inc-plaintiffappellantcross-appellee-v-northern-ca10-1982.