Novinger v. E. I. DuPont deNemours & Co.

89 F.R.D. 588, 1981 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11386
CourtDistrict Court, M.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedMarch 23, 1981
DocketCiv. No. 79-1188
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 89 F.R.D. 588 (Novinger v. E. I. DuPont deNemours & Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, M.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Novinger v. E. I. DuPont deNemours & Co., 89 F.R.D. 588, 1981 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11386 (M.D. Pa. 1981).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM

RAMBO, District Judge.

A motion to dismiss a third party complaint is before the court. Third-party defendant Deutsche Akzo Coatings GmbH (DAC),1 a German manufacturer of automobile repair products, asserts that this court lacks jurisdiction over it and that the third-party complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.

Plaintiffs sued several defendants who are in some way involved with auto body work. Jurisdiction is based on diversity of citizenship. Kevin Novinger alleges that his contact with certain products used to finish automobiles caused permanent severe neurological damage. The complaint states that he was a painter in the service department of an automobile dealership from January to May of 1977. One of the defendants, Mercedes-Benz of North America, Inc. (MBNA), was granted leave to file a third-party complaint against DAC. DAC responded with a motion to dismiss the complaint.

Jurisdiction

DAC’s affidavit supporting its disclaimer of jurisdiction recites that DAC has no direct contacts with Pennsylvania. Lesonal is the tradename for DAC’s car repair products. Lesonal products have not been sold for use in the United States since January 1, 1978. Before that Lesonal products were sold to Original Imports, Inc., a Massachusetts company. The sales were made in Europe. According to the affidavit, “DAC has no knowledge of any Lesonal car repair products being shipped to Pennsylvania by Original Imports or any other party.”

To support its claim that the court has properly exercised jurisdiction over DAC, MBNA presented evidence that during 1976-77 there were forty-seven separate sales of Lesonal products to Myers Oldsmobile, Kevin Novinger’s employer. R. C. Cook Company, a Pennsylvania dealer in auto body supplies, sold the paint to Myers.

It is well settled that the party claiming that the court has jurisdiction over another litigant is the one who has the burden of proof on that issue. Hicks v. Kawasaki Heavy Industries, 452 F.Supp. [591]*591130 (M.D.Pa.1978). MBNA has established by affidavit that numerous cans of Lesonal products were purchased by Myers Oldsmobile in the regular course of business. DAC has proffered no evidence that the presence of these products in Pennsylvania was a singular or unexpected occurrence. The court finds on these facts that the exercise of jurisdiction in personam over DAC does not offend the constitutional limits of due process.

In a diversity action when a question of jurisdiction over the person arises, a federal court must first look to the law of the state in which it sits to find whether the authority for the exercise of jurisdiction exists. Angel v. Bullington, 330 U.S. 183, 67 S.Ct. 657, 91 L.Ed. 832 (1947). Pennsylvania’s legislature has enacted the Uniform Interstate and International Procedure Act.2 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 5321, et seq. The act permits the courts of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to exercise jurisdiction over persons who do business in the state. It provides:

Section 5322(a)(1) Without excluding other acts which may constitute transacting business in this Commonwealth, any of the following shall constitute transacting business for the purpose of this paragraph:
(iii) The shipping of. merchandise directly or indirectly into or through this Commonwealth.
(b) In addition to the provisions of subsection (a) the jurisdiction of the tribunals of this Commonwealth shall extend to all persons ... to the fullest extent allowed under the Constitution of the United States and may be based on the most minimum contact with this Commonwealth allowed under the Constitution of the United States. (Emphasis supplied.) 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 5322.

Given the breadth of this statute, there can be no question that Pennsylvania law authorizes the exercise of jurisdiction which is at issue here.3

Once the court is satisfied that state law is no barrier to jurisdiction, it must still determine whether the exercise of jurisdiction, given the facts of the case, is consistent with the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The basic constitutional considerations have been developed in a series of United States Supreme Court cases beginning with International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945). In that case the court stated:

Whether due process is satisfied must depend rather upon the quality and nature of the activity in relation to the fair and orderly administration of the laws which it was the purpose of the due process clause to insure.. That clause does not contemplate that a state may make binding a judgment in personam against an individual or corporate defendant with which the state has no contacts, ties or relations.
But to the extent that a corporation exercises the privilege of conducting activities within a state, it enjoys the benefits and protection of the laws of that state. The exercise of that privilege may give rise to obligations, and, so far as those obligations arise out of or are connected with the activities within the state, a procedure which requires the corporation to respond to a suit brought to enforce them can, in most instances, hardly be said to be undue. (Citations omitted.) International Shoe, p. 319, 66 S.Ct. p. 160.

Applying these principles to the facts before it, the Court held that it was reasonable and just to expect International Shoe Company to defend a lawsuit in Washington.

[592]*592The contacts of International Shoe Company with the state of Washington which justified in personam jurisdiction were more extensive than those of the present case. International Shoe employed several salesmen who lived and worked in the state, though the company maintained no office there. Yet in a later case, McGee v. International Life Insurance Co., 355 U.S. 220, 78 S.Ct. 199, 2 L.Ed.2d 223 (1957), the Court significantly lessened the quantity and quality of the contacts which could subject a defendant to personal jurisdiction. In McGee an out-of-state insurance company assumed an insurance obligation to an individual residing in California. It mailed a certificate of reinsurance to the insured in California and received premium payments from there. The beneficiary of the policy sought to enforce it in the courts of California. The Supreme Court held that these contacts were sufficient to give the California courts the right to provide a forum to redress the grievances of the beneficiary.

Against this background, several federal district courts sitting in Pennsylvania have upheld the exercise of personal jurisdiction on facts similar to the present case. They found not only that the Pennsylvania statute permitted the exercise of personal jurisdiction, but that the shipping of products into Pennsylvania through a distributor, that is indirectly, established the minimum contact with the forum state required to satisfy the constitutional standards of due process. Hicks v. Kawasaki Heavy Industries, 452 F.Supp.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
89 F.R.D. 588, 1981 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11386, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/novinger-v-e-i-dupont-denemours-co-pamd-1981.