Four Seasons Gardening & Landscaping, Inc. v. Crouch

• Citation: 41 UCCRep.Serv. 1692,688 S.W.2d 439
• Decision Date: 19 December 1984
• Docket Number: No. 84-59-II,84-59-II
• Court: Tennessee Court of Appeals
• Parties: FOUR SEASONS GARDENING & LANDSCAPING, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. W.M. CROUCH, d/b/a Crisp Springs Nursery, Defendant-Appellee. 688 S.W.2d 439, 41 UCC Rep.Serv. 1692

Page 439

688 S.W.2d 439

FOUR SEASONS GARDENING & LANDSCAPING, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. W.M. CROUCH, d/b/a Crisp Springs Nursery, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 84-59-II

688 S.W.2d 439, 41 UCC Rep.Serv. 1692

Court of Appeals of Tennessee, Middle Section, at Nashville.

Dec. 19, 1984.

Application for Permission to Appeal

Denied by Supreme

Court

April 1, 1985.

Harold N. Roney, Camp & Roney, McMinnville, for plaintiff-appellant.

B. Timothy Pirtle, McMinnville, for defendant-appellee.

OPINION

KOCH, Judge.

Four Seasons Gardening & Landscaping, Inc., a Georgia corporation, filed this action in the Circuit Court for Warren County pursuant to Tenn.Code Ann. Sec. 26-6-101 et seq. to enforce a default judgment obtained in the Superior Court of Columbia County, Georgia against W.M. Crouch, a resident of Morrison, Tennessee. The trial court declined to give the Georgia judgment full faith and credit on the basis that the Georgia trial court did not acquire personal jurisdiction over Mr. Crouch. Four Seasons Gardening & Landscaping, Inc. has perfected this appeal. For the reasons stated herein, we reverse the judgment of the trial court.

W.M. Crouch owns and operates a wholesale nursery business in Morrison, Tennessee known as the Crisp Springs Nursery. He has customers in at least twelve states including Georgia. ¹ Every year he mails out a wholesale price list to selected customers offering to sell his nursery stock. As part of his solicitation, Mr. Crouch also offers to deliver his nursery stock to the purchaser for an additional fee. ²

In late 1981 or early 1982, Mr. Crouch received a telephone call from George Fuller, Jr., the president of Four Seasons Gardening & Landscaping, Inc. Mr. Fuller had done business with Mr. Crouch before and was calling to inquire whether Mr. Crouch could find him a number of bald cypress trees. Mr. Crouch found these trees at a neighboring nursery and placed a call to Mr. Fuller in Georgia to inform him that the trees had been located.

As a result of these two telephone conversations, Mr. Fuller traveled to Tennessee to select the trees he wished to purchase. Mr. Fuller and Mr. Crouch went to the nursery where the trees were growing and selected and trimmed the trees Mr. Fuller wanted to buy. Then they returned to Mr. Crouch's office where they drew up their contract. ³ After Mr. Fuller had agreed to purchase the cypress trees, he and Mr. Crouch agreed that they would be transported to Mr. Fuller's place of business in Georgia in Mr. Crouch's trucks.

When Mr. Fuller returned to Georgia, he began to call Mr. Crouch frequently to ask him to deliver the trees. Mr. Crouch was delayed in making the delivery because of the inclement weather. However, he finally drove his truck to Georgia himself to make the delivery. While he was in Georgia, Mr. Fuller wrote him a check to pay him in full for the trees and the delivery charges.

In September or October, 1982, Mr. Fuller called Mr. Crouch to place another order. During this telephone conversation, Mr. Fuller informed Mr. Crouch that all the nursery stock he had delivered previously had died and requested that Mr. Crouch refund his money and reimburse him for the losses. Mr. Crouch refused.

On November 15, 1982, Four Seasons Gardening & Landscaping, Inc. filed an action in the Superior Court of Columbia County, Georgia seeking damages resulting from Mr. Crouch's conduct. Mr. Crouch was personally served with process in this action on November 22, 1982. He consulted his attorney immediately. In his words, his lawyer advised him that he "was not liable in the State of Georgia" and told him that he would take care of the matter. Mr. Crouch sent all other correspondence concerning this dispute to his counsel.

No answer or other pleading was filed on Mr. Crouch's behalf in the Georgia proceeding. Thus, on February 2, 1983, the Superior Court of Columbia County, Georgia, after hearing the testimony of Mr. Fuller and making detailed findings of fact and conclusions of law, entered a default judgment against Mr. Crouch in the amount of $12,046.40 plus interest. ⁴ When Mr. Crouch received a copy of this judgment, he gave it to his attorney and told him to do what he thought was best. Counsel made no attempt to seek a reconsideration of this decision by the Georgia trial court nor was an appeal ever taken from the judgment.

Four Seasons Gardening & Landscaping, Inc. filed this action in the Circuit Court for Warren County on March 16, 1983, pursuant to Tenn.Code Ann. Sec. 26-6-101 et seq., the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act. The trial court heard this case on December 2, 1983, without a jury and entered a judgment on December 19, 1983, dismissing the complaint on the basis that the Georgia court did not have personal jurisdiction over Mr. Crouch.

Four Seasons Gardening & Landscaping, Inc. perfected this appeal and now raises two issues in this Court: first, whether W.M. Crouch maintained sufficient ties with the State of Georgia to subject him to the jurisdiction of the Georgia courts for causes of action arising out of the conduct of business in Georgia and second, whether the judgment of the Superior Court of Columbia County, Georgia is entitled to full faith and credit in Tennessee pursuant to Tenn.Code Ann. Sec. 26-6-101 et seq. In his brief filed in this Court, Mr. Crouch also raises the issue that enforcement of this judgment would be contrary to the public policy of Tennessee.

Under the terms of the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act, the courts of this State will presume, absent proper proof to the contrary, that the decrees ⁵ of the courts of record of any sister states are valid. Thus, the burden is placed on the party seeking to attack the validity of a foreign judgment to prove that it should not be given full faith and credit in this State as required by Article 4, Section 1 of the United States Constitution. Slidell v. Valentine, 298 N.W.2d 599, 602 (Iowa 1980); Riggs v. Coplon, 636 S.W.2d 750, 755 (Tex.App.1982); and Diners Club, Inc. v. Makoujy, 110 Misc.2d 870, 443 N.Y.S.2d 116, 117 (1981). Although final judgments entered by courts of other states are ordinarily conclusive, Article 4, Section 1 of the United States Constitution does not compel other states to grant these judgments full faith and credit when it is shown that the court entering the judgment did not have personal jurisdiction over the party against whom the judgment is sought to be enforced. Topham v. L.L.B. Corp., 493 S.W.2d 461, 462 (Tenn.1973) and Benham v. Fisher, 650 S.W.2d 759, 760 (Tenn.App.1983).

Based upon our review of this record, we have determined that Mr. Crouch failed to carry his burden of proving that under the law of the State of Georgia the Superior Court of Columbia County, Georgia did not acquire personal jurisdiction over him in the action commenced by Four Seasons Gardening & Landscaping, Inc. ⁶

Both parties rely heavily upon our courts' decisions construing Tenn.Code Ann. Sec. 20-2-214 (Tennessee's long arm statute) to support their respective positions. However, neither Tennessee's long arm statute nor our decisions construing it are apposite because it is not Tennessee law that determines whether the Georgia trial court had personal jurisdiction over Mr. Crouch. The courts of this State must look to the jurisdictional statutes ⁷ of the state in which the judgment sought to be enforced was entered when determining whether that court had obtained personal jurisdiction over the non-resident defendant. Diners Club, Inc. v. Makoujy, 110 Misc.2d 870, 443 N.Y.S.2d 116, 118 (1981) and McGinnis v. McGinnis, 44 N.C.App. 381, 261 S.E.2d 491, 496 (1980). Thus, our inquiry should be limited to Georgia's long arm statute and the cases construing it to determine whether the Superior Court of Columbia County, Georgia had properly acquired personal jurisdiction over Mr. Crouch in the action filed by Four Seasons Gardening & Landscaping, Inc.

The Superior Court in Georgia acquired jurisdiction over Mr. Crouch in accordance with Georgia's long arm statute, Ga.Code Ann. Sec. 24-113.1(1), which provides, in pertinent part:

A court of this state may exercise personal jurisdiction over any non-resident or his executor or administrator, as to a cause of action arising from any of the acts, omissions, ownership, use, or possession enumerated in this Code section, in the same manner as if he were a resident of the state, if in person or through an agent, he:

(1) Transacts any business within this state;

The language of this statute is patterned after that originally enacted in Illinois. Its purpose is to extend the jurisdiction of Georgia courts to all cases in which the non-resident defendant has engaged in some purposeful activity in Georgia in connection with the matter forming the subject of the lawsuit and not just to those cases in which the contract was made in Georgia. Coe & Payne Co. v. Wood-Mosaic Corp., 125 Ga.App. 845, 189 S.E.2d 459, 466-67 (1972), rev'd on other grounds 230 Ga. 58, 195 S.E.2d 399 (1973) and Lurie v. Rupe, 51 Ill.App.2d 164, 201 N.E.2d 158, 161-62 (1964), cert. denied 380 U.S. 964, 85 S.Ct. 1108, 14 L.Ed.2d 154 (1965). See also Longines-Wittnauer Watch Co. v. Barnes & Reinecke, Inc., 15 N.Y.2d 8, 261 N.Y.S.2d 8, 18, 209 N.E.2d 68, 75, cert. denied 382 U.S. 905, 86 S.Ct. 241, 15 L.Ed.2d 158 (1965).

Courts called upon to construe the scope of Ga.Code Ann. Sec. 24-113.1 have determined that it should be applied as broadly as the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution will permit. Warren v. Warren, 249 Ga. 130, 287 S.E.2d 524, 525 (1982); Davis Metals, Inc. v. Allen, 230 Ga. 623, 198 S.E.2d 285, 287-88 (1973); and Brooks Shoe Manufacturing, Inc. v. Byrd, 144 Ga.App. 431, 241 S.E.2d 299, 300 (1977). See also Interstate Paper Corp. v. Air-O-Flex Equipment Co., 426 F.Supp. 1323, 1324-25 (S.D.Ga.1977). After reviewing the pertinent decisions of the United States...