Adams v. Aircraft Spruce & Specialty Co.
| Decision Date | 22 November 2022 |
| Docket Number | SC 20505 |
| Citation | 345 Conn. 312,284 A.3d 600 |
| Parties | John S. ADAMS, Coadministrator (Estate of Ryan Michael Adams), et al. v. AIRCRAFT SPRUCE & SPECIALTY CO. et al. |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
David S. Golub, for the appellants (plaintiffs).
Gene K. Kaskiw, pro hac vice, with whom were Timothy M. Gondek and, on the brief, Douglas H. Amster, pro hac vice, for the appellee (named defendant).
Robinson, C. J., and McDonald, D'Auria, Mullins, Kahn, Ecker and Keller, Js.
This appeal requires us to revisit the requirements for a forum to exercise specific personal jurisdiction over a foreign corporation in the wake of the United States Supreme Court's recent decisions considering this issue in the context of product liability actions. More particularly, we consider whether the corporation's contacts with the forum can sufficiently "relate to" such a cause of action, such that the forum's exercise of specific personal jurisdiction would be consonant with due process, in the absence of any activity or occurrence in the forum concerning either the specific product or product model that allegedly malfunctioned. The plaintiffs, John S. Adams and Mary Lou Hanney, coadministrators of the estate of Ryan Michael Adams, appeal from the trial court's judgment in favor of the named defendant, Aircraft Spruce & Specialty Co.,1 rendered after the granting of the defendant's motion to dismiss the product liability claim brought against it. The plaintiffs contend that the trial court improperly failed to recognize that, as long as the plaintiffs’ cause of action is not materially different from an action that might have directly resulted from a person's use of the defendant's product in Connecticut, exercising personal jurisdiction over the defendant would satisfy both Connecticut's applicable long arm statute and due process. We disagree and, accordingly, affirm the judgment of the trial court.
The present case arises from a fatal airplane crash. The following relevant facts were alleged in the complaint or were contained in the affidavits and exhibits submitted in support of, or in opposition to, the defendant's motion to dismiss.2 The defendant, a California corporation, is a dealer and distributor of aircraft parts—including overhauled replacement parts for airplane engines, pilot supplies, and other aviation related equipment. It has its principal place of business in California, as well as major business operations in Georgia and Ontario, Canada.
The defendant does not have any offices, plants, facilities, agencies, agents, employees, property, or direct business operations of any kind in Connecticut. It does not "directly" advertise its products in Connecticut; rather, it advertises in a broad campaign directed at the North American market.3
Notwithstanding the lack of direct marketing in this state, since 2008, the defendant has sold aviation related products to Connecticut consumers. Approximately 0.5 percent of the defendant's total revenue from 2012 through 2017 was derived from Connecticut sales, averaging approximately $593,000 per year. Of particular relevance to the present case, out of the 6050 carburetors sold by the defendant during the ten year period between 2008 and 2017, 25 were shipped to Connecticut. The defendant expects that some of the aircraft engine parts it currently offers for sale, including carburetors and carburetor parts, will be sold to Connecticut consumers.
On May 29, 2012, the defendant sold an overhauled replacement carburetor that it had purchased from Kelly Aerospace Power Systems, Inc. (Kelly Aerospace), an Alabama corporation, to Richard O. Bargabos, the
owner and operator of Bargabos Earthworks, Inc., doing business as Eagle View Flight (Eagle View), in Hamilton, New York. There, Bargabos installed it in a Cessna 150H airplane owned by Eagle View.
On September 20, 2015, the plaintiffs’ eighteen year old son, Ryan Michael Adams (decedent), was a passenger in Eagle View's Cessna 150H airplane, which was being piloted by his college classmate, Cathryn Depuy. The decedent and Cathryn Depuy were both residents of Ridgefield, Connecticut, but were then attending Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. Approximately thirty minutes after taking off, the airplane crashed in Morrisville, New York, killing both the decedent and Cathryn Depuy.4
The plaintiffs, residents of Connecticut and coadministrators of the decedent's estate being probated in Connecticut, commenced the present action against the defendant and seven other entities or individuals in the Superior Court in the judicial district of Danbury, asserting theories of strict product liability and negligence.5 The sole count of the complaint directed against the defendant alleged that the overhauled carburetor
it had sold, and which was installed in the plane, malfunctioned after takeoff due to a design defect and that this malfunction was a contributing factor in the decedent's death.6 The defendant moved to dismiss the cause of action against it for lack of personal jurisdiction. Specifically, as relevant to the issue on appeal, the defendant contended that Connecticut's exercise of personal jurisdiction over it would violate its right to due process because its contacts with the state are "virtually nonexistent" and all of the pertinent events leading to this litigation took place in New York. The plaintiffs conceded that the defendant's contacts with Connecticut were insufficient to support general personal jurisdiction under the due process clause but contended that those contacts were sufficiently "related to" the litigation to satisfy Connecticut's long arm statute and specific personal jurisdiction under the due process clause.
After oral argument and supplemental briefing, the trial court issued its decision granting the defendant's motion to dismiss the cause of action against it. The court agreed with the plaintiffs that personal jurisdiction was authorized under Connecticut's applicable long arm statute, General Statutes § 33-929 (f),7 which
subjects foreign corporations to suit by a resident of the state on a cause of action "arising ... out of" the corporation's distribution of goods with the reasonable expectation that such goods are to be used, and are so used, in this state. The trial court reasoned that, under this court's interpretation of "arising ... out of" in Thomason v. Chemical Bank , 234 Conn. 281, 661 A.2d 595 (1995), no causal connection to the defendant's conduct in Connecticut was required; it was sufficient that the plaintiffs’ cause of action was not materially different from an action that a similarly situated plaintiff could have brought in a Connecticut court. See id., at 296, 661 A.2d 595 ().8 The trial court agreed with the defendant, however, that such circumstances were not sufficient to satisfy the requirements of due process. The court noted that, under recent United States Supreme Court precedent— Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court , ––– U.S. ––––, 137 S. Ct. 1773, 198 L. Ed. 2d 395 (2017) ( Bristol-Myers ), and Walden v. Fiore , 571 U.S. 277, 134 S. Ct. 1115, 188 L. Ed. 2d 12 (2014) —"in order for a court to assert specific personal jurisdiction over an out-of-state party consistent with the requirements of due process, the defendant must have engaged in some activity that connects it to the forum state, and the lawsuit must arise out of or relate to those contacts." The trial court concluded that the "arise out of or relate to" requirement was not met in the present case, reasoning that "[t]he relevant focus is on the actions committed by the defendant, not the fact that the plaintiffs, who allegedly suffered harm that occurred out of state, happen to be in this state. ... [The defendant's] only contacts with Connecticut are its limited sales comprising
less than 1 percent of its total revenue. The parties agree that the items sold in Connecticut did not contribute to the plane crash. The allegedly defective carburetor at issue in this case was not sold in Connecticut, and the death of the plaintiffs’ decedent occurred in New York."
The plaintiffs appealed from the trial court's judgment to the Appellate Court. While their appeal was pending, consolidated appeals of two state court cases bearing on the legal issue in the present appeal were awaiting decision from the United States Supreme Court. See Ford Motor Co . v. Montana Eighth Judicial District Court , ––– U.S. ––––, 141 S. Ct. 1017, 209 L. Ed. 2d 225 (2021). In response to motions by the plaintiffs, this court transferred the appeal to itself; see General Statutes § 51-199 (c) and Practice Book § 65-2 ; and stayed briefing and oral argument until after the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in the consolidated appeals in those cases.
In the present appeal, the plaintiffs claim that the trial court's judgment is inconsistent with the view of the "minimum contacts" necessary to satisfy due process, as articulated by the United States Supreme Court in Ford Motor Co. and by this court in its decision in Thomason interpreting our long arm statute to comport with due process. They contend that, in contravention of the holdings in these cases, the trial court in the present case held that due process requires a causal connection between a defendant's forum conduct and a plaintiff's injury to support specific jurisdiction. The plaintiffs further contend that affirming the trial court's judgment would cast doubt on the constitutional validity of the corporate long arm statute interpreted in Thomason , as well as the noncorporate long arm statute, General Statutes § 52-59b, with regard to out-of-state conduct causing injury to Connecticut residents. We conclude that United States Supreme Court precedent...
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