PENINSULA CRUISE v. New River Yacht Sales
Citation | 512 S.E.2d 560,257 Va. 315 |
Decision Date | 26 February 1999 |
Docket Number | Record No. 980728. |
Parties | PENINSULA CRUISE, INC. v. NEW RIVER YACHT SALES, INC. |
Court | Supreme Court of Virginia |
William J. Doran, III (Chaplin, Papa & Gonet, on brief), Richmond, for appellant.
Michael L. Heikes, Norfolk (Carol Rick Gibbons, Richmond; McGuire, Woods, Battle & Boothe, on brief), for appellee.
Present: All the Justices.
In this appeal we consider whether the circuit court erred in refusing to exercise personal jurisdiction over a Florida corporation pursuant to Code § 8.01-328.1, the long-arm statute.
Peninsula Cruise, Inc., filed its amended motion for judgment against New River Yacht Sales, Inc. The plaintiff sought to recover, among other things, the cost of repairs made to a sport fishing boat it had purchased from New River Yacht Sales. The defendant filed responsive pleadings, including a special plea which asserted that the court lacked personal jurisdiction over it. The defendant contended that it does not transact and has not transacted business in Virginia, nor has it engaged in any other activity that would satisfy the requirements of Code § 8.01-328.1. The litigants agreed to certain stipulated facts, and the circuit court held that it lacked a "sufficient basis upon which to exercise personal jurisdiction over the defendant in accordance with" Code § 8.01-328.1. The circuit court dismissed the action, and the plaintiff appeals.
The following stipulated facts are relevant to our disposition of this appeal. Edward H. Shield, president of Peninsula Cruise, contacted the defendant's employees regarding the purchase of a sport fishing boat. Shortly thereafter, Shield went to the defendant's premises in Fort Lauderdale, Florida to inspect the boat. Shield made arrangements to have a marine surveyor inspect the boat in Fort Lauderdale. The parties agreed that certain improvements and repairs to the boat were necessary. Shield gave the defendant a check as a deposit for the boat and returned to Virginia.
After Shield returned to Virginia, he contacted the defendant's employees to discuss the status of the repairs and improvements to the boat and to make delivery arrangements. The defendant's employees, who were in Florida, prepared an itemization of the repairs to be performed on the boat, fixed the purchase price of the boat at $275,000, and identified the delivery point for the boat as Charleston, South Carolina.
The defendant's employees left Fort Lauderdale with the boat en route to South Carolina. However, the boat developed an oil leak and sustained damage to the propeller. "For additional consideration, [the] [d]efendant agreed to deliver the vessel all the way to Virginia."
The defendant's employees delivered the boat to the plaintiff in Virginia.
Code § 8.01-328.1(A) states in part that The plaintiff contends that the circuit court erred in failing to exercise personal jurisdiction over the defendant because the defendant transacted business in Virginia pursuant to Code § 8.01-328.1(A)(1), and that the defendant had sufficient contacts with Virginia to satisfy the requirements of due process. The defendant, however, asserts that its delivery of the boat to Virginia does not constitute "transacting business" within the meaning of the long-arm statute, and that it did not have sufficient contacts with Virginia to satisfy the requirements of due process.
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal constitution protects a person's liberty interest in not being subject to the binding judgment of a forum unless that person has certain minimum contacts within the territory of the forum so that maintenance of an action against that person does not offend "traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice." International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 316, 66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945). See Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 471-72, 105 S.Ct. 2174, 85 L.Ed.2d 528 (1985)
. The circumstances of each case must be examined to ascertain whether the requisite minimum contacts are present. Kulko v. California Superior Court, 436 U.S. 84, 92, 98 S.Ct. 1690, 56 L.Ed.2d 132 (1978); Witt v. Reynolds Metals Co., 240 Va. 452, 454, 397 S.E.2d 873, 875 (1990).
In World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286, 291-92, 100 S.Ct. 559, 62 L.Ed.2d 490 (1980), the United States Supreme Court discussed the limitations that the Due Process Clause imposes upon the power of a state court to render a valid personal judgment against a non-resident defendant:
The Supreme Court observed that ...
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