Moura v. New Prime, Inc.

337 F. Supp. 3d 87
District Court, District of Columbia·Decided October 9, 2018·No. CIVIL ACTION NO. 4:17-40166-TSH·Published

Opinion

Here, New Prime is a Nebraska corporation with its principal place of business in Missouri. Further, only about one percent of the miles its drivers covered in the last five years has been in Massachusetts and less than one percent of its drivers over the same period reside in the Commonwealth. Plaintiffs do not argue that New Prime is "essentially at home" in Massachusetts or suggest that this is an "exceptional" case where the exercise of *95general jurisdiction would be appropriate. Thus, the extent of New Prime's Massachusetts activities does not approach what is required to assert general jurisdiction.

b. Specific Jurisdiction

Where a court lacks general jurisdiction, it may still exercise specific personal jurisdiction. The inquiry into whether there has been the requisite "minimum contacts" necessary to assert specific personal jurisdiction is inherently imprecise: "the criteria which we mark the boundary line between those activities which justify the subjection of a corporation to suit, and those which do not, cannot be simply mechanical or quantitative." International Shoe Co. v. Washington , 326 U.S. 310, 319, 66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945). To assist in this necessarily individualized assessment, the First Circuit has held that a plaintiff seeking to establish specific jurisdiction must demonstrate that three conditions are satisfied:

First, the claim underlying the litigation must directly arise out of, or relate to, the defendant's forum-state activities. Second, the defendant's in-state contacts must represent a purposeful availment of the privilege of conducting activities in the forum state, thereby invoking the benefits and protections of that state's laws and making the defendant's involuntary presence before the state's courts foreseeable. Third, the exercise of jurisdiction must ... be reasonable.

Phillips , 530 F.3d at 27 (quoting Adelson v. Hananel , 510 F.3d 43, 49 (1st Cir. 2007) ).

i. Relatedness

The relatedness inquiry "serves the important function of focusing the court's attention on the nexus between a plaintiff's claim and the defendant's contacts with the forum." Sawtelle , 70 F.3d at 1389. In a contract dispute, the First Circuit has held that "the proximate cause standard better comports with the relatedness inquiry because it so easily correlates to foreseeability, a significant component of the jurisdictional inquiry. A 'but for' requirement, on the other hand, has in itself no limiting principle; it literally embraces every event that hindsight can logically identify in the causative chain." Nowak v. Tak How Investments, Ltd. , 94 F.3d 708, 715 (1st Cir. 1996). However, the court qualified its support for the proximate cause standard:

That being said, we are persuaded that strict adherence to a proximate cause standard in all circumstances is unnecessarily restrictive. The concept of proximate cause is critically important in the tort context because it defines the scope of a defendant's liability. In contrast, the first prong of the jurisdictional tripartite test is not as rigid: it is, relatively speaking, ... a flexible, relaxed standard. We see no reason why, in the context of a relationship between a contractual or business association and a subsequent tort, the absence of proximate cause per se should always render the exercise of specific jurisdiction unconstitutional.
When a foreign corporation directly targets residents in an ongoing effort to further a business relationship, and achieves its purpose, it may not necessarily be unreasonable to subject that corporation to forum jurisdiction when the efforts lead to a tortious result. The corporation's own conduct increases the likelihood that a specific resident will respond favorably. If the resident is harmed while engaged in activities integral to the relationship the corporation sought to establish, we think the nexus between the contacts and the cause of action is sufficiently strong to survive the due process inquiry at least at the relatedness stage.
*96This concept represents a small overlay of "but for" on "proximate cause." Id. at 715-16. (quotation marks and citations omitted).

Thus, when a tort claim arises out of a contractual relationship (as is the case here) the First Circuit has held that but-for causation may satisfy the relatedness inquiry and comport with due process.

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Moura v. New Prime, Inc., 337 F. Supp. 3d 87 (D.D.C. 2018).

337 F. Supp. 3d 87 (Moura v. New Prime, Inc.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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