Bryant v. Finnish Nat. Airline

• Decision Date: 27 May 1965
• Citation: 15 N.Y.2d 426,260 N.Y.S.2d 625
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: , 208 N.E.2d 439 Eleanor BRYANT, Appellant, v. FINNISH NATIONAL AIRLINE, Respondent.

Page 625

260 N.Y.S.2d 625

15 N.Y.2d 426, 208 N.E.2d 439

Eleanor BRYANT, Appellant, v. FINNISH NATIONAL AIRLINE, Respondent.

Court of Appeals of New York.

May 27, 1965.

Joseph R. Apfel and Daniel Leeds, New York City, for appellant.

Douglas B. Bowring, New York City, for respondent.

Lee S. Kreindler, Milton G. Sincoff and Jules Brody, New York City, for amicus curiae.

DESMOND, Chief Judge.

Defendant's motion to dismiss the complaint under CPLR 3211, (a), 8 for lack of personal jurisdiction of defendant, a Finnish corporation, was denied at Special Term, the court holding that defendant's activities in New York State constituted the transaction of business within the State. The relevant statutes are CPLR 301 which says that: 'A court may exercise such jurisdiction over persons, property, or status as might have been exercised heretofore', and section 224 of the General Corporations Law (now Business Corporation Law, Consol.Laws, c. 4, § 1314, subd. (a)) reading thus: 'An action against a foreign corporation may be maintained by a resident of the state, or by a domestic corporation, for any cause of action'. Plaintiff is a resident of New York. The complaint in this suit alleges that at an airport in Paris plaintiff, an employee of Trans World Airlines, was injured through the negligence of defendant Finnish National Airline when she was struck by a baggage cart blown against her by an excessive blast of air produced by one of defendant's aircraft which was moving across the airfield to a parking spot. The question is whether within the statute and cases defendant was 'doing business' in New York State so as to subject it to personal jurisdiction here. The Appellate Division, reversing Special Term, answered that question in the negative.

The Appellate Division majority opinion in these words summarized the facts set forth in the affidavits as to the kind and amount of business done by defendant Finnish National Airline in New York City: 'The defendant is a foreign corporation organized under the laws of Finland, with its principal operating base, its head executive and administrative offices located in Helsinki, Finland, and is not registered in the United States. None of its stockholders, directors or officers are citizens or residents of the United States and defendant has not qualified to do business in the State of New York. All of Finnair's flights begin and end outside of the United States. It operates no aircraft within the United States and, according to Rosenberg, the office in New York does not sell tickets even for its own flights and receives no payment of fares for defendant's flights at its New York office. Defendant maintains a one-and-a-half room office at 10 East 40th Street, New York, staffed with three full-time and four part-time employees, none of whom is an officer or director of defendant. Its principal function is to receive from international air carriers or travel agencies reservations for travel on Finnair in Europe which it transmits to defendant's space control office in Europe. Upon occasion the New York office will transmit information concerning a reservation from the international air carrier or travel agency to defendant's space control office in Europe and relay the confirmation or reply, when received, to such airline or agency. The New York office does some information and publicity work for defendant, and places a certain amount of advertising regarding Finnair's European services in connection with its publicity work. None of the New York office employees has authority to bind the defendant and contracts in connection with such office activities must be sent to the in Helsinki for approval. Finnair maintains a bank account in which, according to Rosenberg, the average balance is less than $2000 and out of which is paid the salaries of the employees, the rent and normal operating expenses of the New York office.' (22 A.D.2d, pp. 19-20, 253 N.Y.S.2d at p. 219.)

The majority opinion discussed a number of New York cases and elicited from them the rule that a foreign corporation in order to be subject to jurisdiction must transact, with a fair measure of continuity and regularity, a reasonable amount of its business within this State. One of the decisions so cited by the court was Simonson v. International Bank (14 N.Y.2d 281, 251 N.Y.S.2d 433, 200 N.E.2d 427). The Simonson opinion says that before CPLR was adopted the decisional law was that a foreign corporation which like this one lacked authorization to do business in this State was held amenable to local suit only if it was engaged in such a continuous and systematic course of doing business here as to warrant a finding of its presence in this jurisdiction. Our court in Simonson, after discussing the grant by Federal decisions of increased power to States to subject foreign corporations to the personal jurisdiction of their courts, stated in effect that as to tortious acts committed outside the State the New York rule has not been changed and that the requirement of 'doing business' persists.

Among the decisions cited by us in Simonson were Elish v. St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co. (305 N.Y. 267, 112 N.E.2d 842) and Miller v. Surf Props. (4 N.Y.2d 475, 176 N.Y.S.2d 318, 151 N.E.2d 874). In Elish v. St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co. (305 N.Y. 267, 112 N.E.2d 842, supra), the defendant was a Missouri railroad corporation not qualified to do business in this State but maintaining two offices here from which it solicited freight business and where through its vice-president it conducted business transactions relating to its financial structure including bond issue arrangements and involving one meeting each year in New York City of its board of...