American Overseas Marine Corp. v. Patterson

• Decision Date: 09 March 1994
• Docket Number: No. 93-952,93-952
• Citation: 632 So.2d 1124
• Parties: , 19 Fla. L. Weekly D536, 19 Fla. L. Weekly D651 AMERICAN OVERSEAS MARINE CORPORATION, Wilmington Trust Corporation, and Braintree II Maritime Corporation, Appellants, v. Janice PATTERSON, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 1124

632 So.2d 1124

1994 A.M.C. 1335, 19 Fla. L. Weekly D536,

19 Fla. L. Weekly D651

AMERICAN OVERSEAS MARINE CORPORATION, Wilmington Trust Corporation, and Braintree II Maritime Corporation, Appellants, v. Janice PATTERSON, Appellee.

No. 93-952.

District Court of Appeal of Florida First District.

March 9, 1994.

James J. Taylor, Jr., Law Office of Gabel Taylor, Jacksonville, for appellants.

Gregory W. Johnson, Michael B. Wedner, and Lindsey C. Brock, III, Rumrell & Johnson, P.A., Jacksonville, for appellee.

WOLF, Judge.

American Overseas Marine Corporation (American), Wilmington Trust Corporation (Wilmington), and Braintree II Maritime Corporation (Braintree) appeal from a nonfinal order denying a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. We find that the appellants did not engage in purposeful, continuous, and systematic contacts within the state of Florida which would justify the exercise of general jurisdiction over the appellants. The trial court's order denying appellants' motion to dismiss is reversed.

On May 8, 1991, appellee filed her complaint in the lower court against appellants, seeking damages for injuries she allegedly sustained as the result of an accident that occurred in May 1988 in the harbor of Saipan, an island in the Mariannas Islands in the Pacific Ocean. ¹ At the time of the accident, appellee was working as a crew member on the vessel PFC Dewayne T. Williams. Wilmington owns the PFC Dewayne T. Williams, and American Overseas operates the vessel pursuant to an operating contract with Braintree, the vessel's bareboat charterer. ²

Appellants, all of which are nonresident corporations, were served with the original complaint by personal service on their respective registered agents for service of process in Massachusetts, where American Overseas has its principal place of business.

In response to the original complaint, appellants filed their motion to dismiss and/or to require a more definite statement, asserting, among other things, lack of jurisdiction over them in Florida. In support of their motion, appellants filed the affidavit of Jeffrey P. Sherman of American Overseas.

The Sherman affidavit asserts that the PFC Dewayne T. Williams is one of five maritime prepositioning ships, commonly referred to as "MPS vessels" that American Overseas operates pursuant to time charter agreements between Braintree and the United States. ³ These MPS vessels are prepositioned in various locations around the world, as determined by the United States Military Sealift Command, with a complement of military equipment on board sufficient to outfit a marine amphibious brigade, so as to facilitate rapid deployment of mobile United States military forces anywhere in the world that the need may arise. According to the Sherman affidavit,

[T]hese vessels do not engage in the carriage of goods, but are kept permanently loaded with jeeps, weapons and other military hardware. They are kept in almost constant movement from one port of call to another at the command of the United States military in order to maintain them and their crews in a state of maximum military readiness.

The Sherman affidavit demonstrated that appellants' contacts with Florida have been in connection with the activities of the MPS vessels, and at the direction of the United States military:

(b) At the military's direction, every two years each of the five MPS vessels [including the PFC Dewayne T. Williams] unloads her military cargo at the Jacksonville Naval Base so that the cargo can be serviced and maintained by the military. The cargo is then reloaded.

(c) Each of the "MPS" vessels participates in loading and unloading exercises at Panama City, Florida, approximately once a year, at the command of the military.

(d) The M/V "2nd Lt. John P. Bobo," one of the "MPS" vessels, is based in the Atlantic and moves between various Florida ports on a regular basis at the command of the military.

(e) The "MPS" vessels have had underwater surveys at Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

(f) Other than the American Overseas husbanding agent specified in paragraph (g), only during periods when the aforesaid contacts with Florida take place does or did American Overseas or Braintree have any agents or employees in Florida, and these were present merely to accomplish the foregoing in accordance with the commands of the military.

(g) The husbanding agent in Florida for American Overseas' vessels is Strachan Shipping Company in Jacksonville.

According to the Sherman affidavit, with the exception of the above-mentioned military-directed activities, appellants

are neither incorporated in nor authorized to transact business in Florida; have no agents, employees, agency or offices in Florida; and do not in any manner transact, operate, conduct, engage in our carry on business or any business venture in Florida, or have any business contacts of any kind with Florida.

Subsequently, the appellee sought and the lower court by order allowed certain jurisdictional discovery for a three-and-a-half-year period preceding May 9, 1991, when the original complaint was filed. The responses to the jurisdictional discovery show that the PFC Dewayne T. Williams was in port in Florida for all or part of 25 days in 1988, or about 1/15 of the days that year. However, that vessel did not call at a Florida port in 1989, in 1990, or at any time from January 1, 1991, through May 9, 1991, the end of the time period that the court allowed for jurisdictional discovery. The PFC Dewayne T. Williams, the vessel on which plaintiff worked, thus, had no contact of any kind with Florida at any time during the two-and-a-half years prior to the commencement of this lawsuit.

The lower court also allowed jurisdictional discovery with respect to the other four MPS vessels. Appellants' jurisdictional discovery responses showed the following with respect to those vessels:

1. The First Lt. Baldomero Lopez made no port calls in Florida in 1988; was in port in Florida for all or part of 15 days in 1989; was in Florida ports for all or part of nine days in 1990; and did not enter a Florida port at any time from January 1, 1991, through May 9, 1991.

2. The First Lt. Jack Lummus was in port in Florida for all or part of seven days in 1988; was in Florida ports for all or part of nine days in 1989; and did not call at a Florida port in 1990, or at any time from January 1, 1991, through May 9, 1991.

3. The Sgt. William R. Button was in port in Florida for all or part of 20 days in 1988; and did not call at a Florida port in 1989, in 1990, or at any time from January 1, 1991, through May 9, 1991.

4. The Second Lt. John P. Bobo, unlike the other MPS vessels, is based in the Atlantic Ocean and, therefore, she has had more contacts with Florida. She was in port in Florida for all or part of 91 days in 1988; was in Florida ports for all or part of 25 days in 1989; was in Florida ports for all or part of 61 days in 1990; but she made no Florida port calls at any time from January 1, 1991, through May 9, 1991.

Following the conclusion of the jurisdictional discovery, appellants set their motion to dismiss for hearing. The trial court denied the motion to dismiss. ⁴

Specific jurisdiction exists "when a State exercises personal jurisdiction over a defendant in a suit arising out of or related to the defendant's contacts with the forum." Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia, S.A. v. Hall, 466 U.S. 408, 411 n. 8, 104 S.Ct. 1868, 1872 n. 8, 80 L.Ed.2d 404, 411 n. 8 (1984). This kind of jurisdiction is often referred to as "connexity jurisdiction," since it requires a causal connection between the defendant's activities in the forum state and the plaintiff's cause of action.

Where, as here, specific jurisdiction cannot be exercised, a court in the forum state may exercise jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant only where general jurisdiction can be established. Helicopteros, supra at 411-412, 104 S.Ct. at 1870-71 (citing Perkins v. Benquet Consolidated Mining Co., 342 U.S. 437, 72 S.Ct. 413, 96 L.Ed. 485 (1952)). General jurisdiction, as distinguished from specific jurisdiction, does not require that the plaintiff's cause of action arise out of the nonresident defendant's contacts with the forum state. Id. However, for general jurisdiction to exist, the defendant must be found to have maintained "continuous and systematic general business contacts" with the forum, so that it can properly be considered to be "present" in the forum. Id.

The requirement of continuous and systematic general business contacts establishes "a much higher threshold" than the "minimum contacts" required to assert specific jurisdiction, "for the facts required to assert this general jurisdiction must be 'extensive and pervasive.' " Reliance Steel Products Co. v. Watson, ESS, Marshall & Enggas, 675 F.2d 587, 589 (3d Cir.1982); see also Complaint of Damodar Bulk Carriers, Ltd., 903 F.2d 675, 679 (9th Cir.1990) (Helicopteros "erect[s] a stringent standard for determining which contacts will support a finding of general jurisdiction"); Provident Nat'l Bank v. California Fed. Savings and Loan Ass'n, 819 F.2d 434, 437 (3d Cir.1987) (general jurisdiction requires "significantly more than mere minimum contacts"); Allied Leather Corp. v. Altama Delta Corp., 785 F.Supp. 494, 498 (M.D.Pa.1992) ("general jurisdiction threshold ... is much higher than that for specific jurisdiction"); Levesque v. F/V Atlantic Dawn, 1992 A.M.C. 510, 513, 1991 WL 324404 (D.Me.1991) ("stricter standard for general jurisdiction").

In Helicopteros, supra, the Supreme Court also made clear that "unilateral activity of another party or a third person is not an appropriate consideration when determining whether a defendant has sufficient contacts with a forum State to justify an assertion of jurisdiction." Helicopteros, supra 466 U.S. at 417, 104 S.Ct. at 1873 (citing Kulko v. Superior Court of California, 436 U.S. 84, 98 S.Ct. 1690, 56...