United Technologies Corp. v. Mazer
| Citation | 556 F.3d 1260 |
| Decision Date | 05 February 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. 06-15561.,No. 06-15562.,06-15561.,06-15562. |
| Parties | UNITED TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Russell MAZER, Defendant, Aircraft Power Maintenance, West-Hem Aircraft Supplies, Inc., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit) |
Thomas G. Rollback, Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider LLP, Hartford, CT, for United Technologies Corp.
Gary M. Bagliebter, Shutts & Bowen, LLP, John H. Pelzer, Ruden, McClosky, Smith, Schuster & Russell, P.A., Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Suzanne Youmans Labrit, Al-exander Earl Eagleton, Shutts & Bowen, LLP, Miami, FL, for Aircraft Power Maintenace and West-Hem Aircraft Supplies, Inc.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Before TJOFLAT, MARCUS and WILSON, Circuit Judges.
This case stems from the theft and sale of blueprints relating to an aircraft engine manufactured by the Pratt & Whitney division ("Pratt") of United Technologies Corporation ("UTC"). UTC claimed that West-Hem Aircraft Supplies, Inc. ("West-Hem") and Aircraft Power Maintenance ("APM") are legally responsible for the theft and sale, and it sued them in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The district court, in separate orders, granted West-Hem's motion to dismiss UTC's complaint for failure to state a claim for relief1 and APM's motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction,2 and it entered final judgments pursuant to those orders under Rule 54(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. UTC now appeals. We reverse the judgment for West-Hem, concluding that the complaint states a claim for relief. We affirm the judgment for APM, however, because the district court correctly found that the record provided an insufficient basis for exercising personal jurisdiction over APM.
Pratt is a wholly-owned division of UTC, a Delaware corporation headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut, and is engaged in the business of manufacturing, repairing maintaining, and providing related support and services for turbine engines. West-Hem is a Florida corporation, located in Riviera Beach, Florida, in the business of buying and selling aircraft parts and related support materials. APM is a Belgian company, located in Wevelgem, Belgium, engaged in the business of repairing and maintaining aircraft engines. Russell Mazer, a co-defendant in this case, is president and part owner of West-Hem and a director and 40% owner of APM. West-Hem had long been a customer of Pratt, and APM had been a customer of both Pratt and West-Hem for years.
As part of its business, APM repaired and maintained Pratt engines, including engine model PWAJT8D ("JT8D"). In order to work on a JT8D, as with any Pratt engine, APM would need to purchase from Pratt either specially-made precision tools or blueprints and licenses required to make such precision tooling for itself. For this reason, APM had an interest in acquiring a set of Pratt's blueprints for the JT8D tooling, and West-Hem wanted to fulfill that need by acquiring a set of the blueprints to sell to APM. To this end, West-Hem's Mazer had tried to locate and purchase a set of the blueprints from numerous sources, who quoted prices as high as $100,000. The reasonable commercial value of the blueprints, which Pratt deemed to be protected and proprietary, was approximately $250,000.
In November 2003, Mazer met with Pratt employees in Connecticut about West-Hem business unrelated to this case. Among the Pratt personnel with whom Mazer met while in Connecticut was Anthony DiLorenzo, a temporary contract worker. Mazer mentioned to DiLorenzo that he was interested in acquiring a set of the JT8D tooling blueprints. Although Di-Lorenzo's employment contract with Pratt prohibited him from accessing Pratt's proprietary or other protected information without authorization from a responsible authority, he apparently suggested to Mazer that he could provide the blueprints.4
Between January and March 2004, APM's managing director, Wilhelm Loetschert, was visiting Florida from Belgium and staying at Mazer's home in order to attend helicopter pilot training. At some point during this period, Mazer and Loetschert discussed West-Hem's potential acquisition of the Pratt blueprints from DiLorenzo, including the price that West-Hem would pay for the blueprints.5
At some point in February or March 2004, DiLorenzo either accessed or caused someone else to access a protected Pratt computer and, without authorization, obtained a printed copy of the JT8D tooling blueprints. Thereafter, in March or April 2004, West-Hem and Mazer purchased the blueprints from DiLorenzo for approximately $5,000.6 Mazer provided DiLorenzo with West-Hem's Federal Express account information to use in sending the blueprints to West-Hem in Florida, received the blueprints at West-Hem's office, and instructed West-Hem employees to send DiLorenzo payment for the blueprints using West-Hem's Federal Express account. APM's Loetschert provided a portion of the cash used to purchase the blueprints while he was staying in Florida with Mazer.7
Following Mazer and West-Hem's receipt of the blueprints, Mazer had West-Hem employees make copies of the blueprints using West-Hem equipment and store the original blueprints at West-Hem's Florida office. In March or April 2004, Mazer also had West-Hem employees ship a copy of the blueprints, using West-Hem's Federal Express account, to APM's office in Belgium. Subsequently, West-Hem issued one or more invoices to APM charging approximately $25,000 for the blueprints, and APM paid.
On August 27, 2004, Mazer pled guilty in Florida state court to a criminal charge of dealing in stolen property, in violation of Fla. Stat. § 812.019, in connection with his purchase and sale of the stolen Pratt blueprints. Additionally, in or around February 2005, in connection with the theft of the Pratt blueprints, DiLorenzo pled guilty in federal court in Connecticut to a charge of accessing a protected computer without authorization to further an intended fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(4).
UTC brought this lawsuit against Mazer, West-Hem, and APM on November 3, 2005.8 Its complaint, as amended, contains eleven counts,9 alleging torts under Florida common and statutory law. All three defendants were charged with civil theft, pursuant to Fla. Stat. §§ 812.014 and 772.11, and conversion; West-Hem and APM were charged with unjust enrichment; West-Hem and Mazer were charged with dealing in stolen property, pursuant to Fla. Stat. §§ 812.019 and 772.1; and all three defendants were charged with conspiring to commit the above torts.
West-Hem moved the court to dismiss the complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim for relief. APM moved the court to dismiss it from the case under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2) for lack of personal jurisdiction. APM accompanied its motion with the affidavit of its managing director, Wilhelm Loetschert, in which Loetschert admitted his limited personal presence in Florida, unrelated to APM business, in December 2003 and from January 31, 2004 to March 24, 2004; described APM's lack of general contacts with the state of Florida; and specifically denied several newly-added factual allegations relating to him and APM appearing in UTC's complaint. In response to the Loetschert affidavit, UTC attempted to establish personal jurisdiction over APM by tendering a summary of an August 24, 2004 interview of Russell Mazer, prepared by Special Agent Andrew Dunphy of the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Defense (the "Dunphy Report"), in which Mazer purportedly provided information corroborating UTC's allegations concerning Loetschert and APM's knowledge and conduct—in Florida—regarding the purchase of the stolen blueprints.10
The district court granted both motions. Addressing West-Hem's motion, the court found impossible UTC's allegation that Mazer committed his wrongful acts both personally and in his capacity as president of West-Hem: "Simply put, if Mazer personally committed the crimes, he could not also have committed them as a representative of West-Hem." Furthermore, the district court found that the complaint failed to establish that Mazer's conduct was within the scope of his West-Hem employment because "there is no allegation that West-Hem makes the buying or selling of blueprints part of its business." Instead, the court continued, Mazer's conduct could only be within the scope of his employment "if West-Hem was in the business of `fencing' stolen property."
Turning to APM's motion, the district court concluded that it lacked general jurisdiction over APM due to the absence of general, systematic business contacts by APM with Florida. The court further found that the Loetschert affidavit had specifically rebutted each of UTC's allegations of APM's contacts with Florida relating to the causes of action stated in the complaint. The court rejected UTC's argument that Mazer's statements in the Dunphy Report established jurisdiction on the ground that Mazer's statements constituted hearsay within hearsay and thus were inadmissible and incompetent. As a further basis for granting APM's motion, the court pointed to cases interpreting the "[c]ommitting a tortious act within this state" provision of the Florida long-arm statute, Fla. Stat. § 48.193(1)(b), as requiring a claim of injury in Florida, something the complaint did not allege. Finally, the court found UTC's conspiracy claim against APM insufficient to support personal jurisdiction due to the absence of a viable allegation that APM, West-Hem, and Mazer had conspired to commit a tort in Florida.
Upon UTC's motion, the district court granted separate and final judgments, pursuant to Rule 54(b), in favor of West-Hem and APM. This appeal followed.
We review de novo the dismissal of the claims against West-Hem...
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