Sun-X International Company v. Witt

413 S.W.2d 761, 1967 Tex. App. LEXIS 2643
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 7, 1967
Docket7797
StatusPublished
Cited by41 cases

This text of 413 S.W.2d 761 (Sun-X International Company v. Witt) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sun-X International Company v. Witt, 413 S.W.2d 761, 1967 Tex. App. LEXIS 2643 (Tex. Ct. App. 1967).

Opinion

FANNING, Justice.

Plaintiff-appellant, Sun-X International, Inc., a Texas corporation, with its principal offices in Houston, Harris County, Texas, filed suit in a District Court of Harris County, Texas, against defendant-appellee, Arthur J. B. Witt, a resident of California, alleging breach of a certain distributor-dealer contract. Service of process was effected upon defendant-appellee under Art. 2031b, Vernon’s Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. Defendant-appellee, pursuant to Rule 120a, Tex.R.Civ.P., filed his special appearance objecting to the trial court’s in personam jurisdiction on the ground that he was not amenable to the process issued by the Texas court. The trial court, after hearing the evidence adduced, sustained appellee’s special appearance, and dismissed plaintiff-appellant’s suit for want of personal jurisdiction over defendant-appellee. Plaintiff-appellant has appealed.

The trial court filed findings of fact and conclusions of law, to-wit:

“FINDINGS OF FACT
“1. Plaintiff, a Texas corporation, sued defendant, an individual who resides in the State of California for actual and exemplary damages for breach of a distributor-dealer contract. Plaintiff does not attempt to recite in such pleadings what the breach consisted of and sues for a lump sum representing actual and exemplary damages. Service was made upon the defendant under Article 2031(b) TRCS and defendant made a special appearance and challenged the jurisdiction of the Court.
2. In August of 1964 the defendant received a solicitation from L. L. Brown, an employee of plaintiff, from a California telephone location, in the interest of getting defendant to accept a dealership relationship with plaintiff, covering its products and in response to such solicitation the defendant signed plaintiff’s distributorship-dealer contract on August 24, 1964 in California, such contract, together with Exhibits, being Plaintiff’s Exhibits 1, 2 and 3.
*763 3. Such distributor-dealer contract was accepted by Mr. Don R. Manthey in Houston Harris County, Texas, in keeping with the provisions of the contract.
4. The contract authorizes the defendant to serve as dealer within the prescribed limits of California for plaintiff’s product, a liquid plastic material applied to plate glass surfaces. The contract further provides for the purchase of delineated materials to the extent of $5,-952.00, which sum was deposited with L. L. Brown at the time the distributorship-dealer contract was executed.
5. Additionally, the contract provides for the defendant to purchase a certain gallonage of plaintiff’s plastic material during each succeeding twelve months period, beginning six months after date of execution and for such gal-lonage to increase for successive periods. The contract does not provide where payment for such material is to be made or where such material is to be shipped.
6. Plaintiff made shipments in keeping with the terms of the contract from Houston, FOB that point, and on subsequent dates the plaintiff made material shipments, FOB Houston, Texas, to defendant, in response to orders.
7. In keeping with contractual provisions plaintiff printed and published pertinent bulletin service material and mailed them to defendant and correspondence was exchanged between an employee of plaintiff and defendant, advising, among other things, some of the problems and techniques applicable to effect marketing of plaintiff’s product.
8. The contract provides that plaintiff will keep defendant informed through a dealer bulletin service and that national advertising shall be made by plaintiff of the product to be distributed by defendant and plaintiff conducted a direct mail campaign from Houston in connection with the marketing of its product in California, such activity being designed to redound to the benefit of plaintiff and defendant through encouragement of product acceptance.
9.All marketable material and advertising and promotional media were dispatched FOB Houston and all activities on the part of defendant in the interest of marketing through dealerships of plaintiff’s product occurred in California and the defendant has never resided in Texas, has not been in Texas at any time material to any of the inquiries involved in this litigation, maintains no office or agent in Texas, and has never conducted any business undertaking in Texas incident to plaintiff’s business, beyond the extent set forth above.
“CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
“1. Defendant did not purposefully do any act or consummate a transaction in the State of Texas, the acceptance of the contract in Texas, the shipments and mailings from Texas being insufficient to satisfy such requirements and therefore ‘minimal contact’ was wanting.
2. Plaintiff failed to show by pleading and evidence that plaintiff’s cause of action for breach of contract arose out of any act or consummated transaction in the State of Texas, if it be considered that there was such an act.
3. The assumption of jurisdiction by the Court in which this cause pends under the attending facts aforesaid, would offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice, after considering the quality, nature and extent of the defendant’s activity as same relates to Texas and the relative convenience of the parties, the benefits and protection of the laws of Texas afforded the parties and the basic equities of the situation.
4. Therefore this suit cannot be said to be one to enforce an obligation that arose from a privilege the defendant exercised in Texas.
*764 5. If Section 4, Article 2031(b) is to receive a literal interpretation and therefore a part of the overall contractual obligation is performable in Texas, which is true here, will vest jurisdiction over the defendant, such provision violates the due process clause of the 14th Amendment and is unconstitutional.”

The trial court also filed additional findings of fact and conclusions of law shown below. 1

Appellant on appeal contends that the trial court erred in failing to specifically find that appellee’s activities were of the nature and kind contemplated by Article 2031b, §§ 3 and 4, Texas.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. Appellee by his first counterpoint contends that Art. 2031b, Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann., does not authorize service on the appellee because it was intended to apply only to the fullest permissible reach under the United States Constitution and its application under the facts in this case would violate the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, and that therefore the trial court did not err in holding that Art. 2031b, was inapplicable to confer in personam jurisdiction over appellee. By his second counterpoint appellee contends that the trial court did not err in holding Art. 2031b, Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann., unconstitutional when applied to the facts of the case at bar.

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Bluebook (online)
413 S.W.2d 761, 1967 Tex. App. LEXIS 2643, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sun-x-international-company-v-witt-texapp-1967.