Hill v. MORGAN POWER APPARATUS CORPORATION
Decision Date | 18 February 1966 |
Docket Number | No. H-65-C-21.,H-65-C-21. |
Parties | Odie HILL, Plaintiff, v. MORGAN POWER APPARATUS CORPORATION, Defendant. |
Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas |
Henry Woods, of McMath, Leatherman, Woods & Youngdahl, Little Rock, Ark., for plaintiff.
William H. Sutton, of Smith, Williams, Friday & Bowen, Little Rock, Ark., for defendant.
The complaint in this case alleges that the plaintiff is a citizen of Arkansas and that he was injured in October 1964 in Lee County, Arkansas, through the use of a defective swivel manufactured by defendant which had been purchased by plaintiff's employer, a California contractor engaged in a construction project in Arkansas.
The defendant is incorporated under the laws of the State of Washington, with its principal place of business at Seattle. It has no employees or agents in the State of Arkansas. It has no place of business, maintains no office, and has no property in this State.
In September 1964 plaintiff's employer, by telephone, arranged for the purchase of certain materials from defendant, including the swivel mentioned in the complaint, and for their shipment to Arkansas, which was done. The defendant had never sold or shipped any goods to Arkansas prior to that time and has not done so since.
The attempted service had upon the defendant was under Act 101, Ark.Stats. 27-2502, the pertinent portion reading as follows:
Plaintiff claims that his service is authorized under 1(b) and (c) above.
Broadly, the questions here are: (a) What Arkansas has established as the limits of its jurisdiction over foreign corporations under its statute, and (b) If these limitations do not exclude the present suit, whether its inclusion complies with due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Supreme Court of Arkansas has not passed on this question, and this Court is left to its own devices in attempting to interpret the statute's extent and limitations.
Here if the federal question is reached we are "confronted, factually, with a strict `single act' situation such as where an isolated offending product is the only contact between the defendant and the forum state." Thus we would be "propelled into the very center of the controversial area of pure single act interstate situations where courts, on the constitutional issue, appear still to reach varying results." See Judge Blackmun's opinion in Aftanase v. Economy Baler Co., 343 F. 2d 187 (8th Cir.1965). But in our...
To continue reading
Request your trial-
Moore v. Little Giant Industries, Inc., Civ. A. No. 80-431.
...of the draftsmen to apply (c)(2) in a case in which (c)(4) might also have applied. To the extent that Hill v. Morgan Power Apparatus Corp., 259 F.Supp. 609, 611 (E.D.Ark.1966), aff'd, 368 F.2d 230 (8th Cir. 1966) (construing same subsection of Arkansas long-arm statute) is to the contrary,......
-
Pennsalt Chemical Corp. v. Crown Cork & Seal Co., 5--4341
...reach of the statute those isolated transactions where the nonresident has no other contact with the state, Hill v. Morgan Power Apparatus Corp., 259 F.Supp. 609 (E.D.Ark.1966), but on the other hand recognizes that one who pursues a persistent course of conduct or otherwise derives substan......
-
Travelers Indemnity Co. v. MICHIGAN MUTUAL LIABILITY CO.
... ... , The Travelers Indemnity Company, a Connecticut corporation, The Fidelity and Casualty Company of New York, a New York ... ...
- Hill v. MORGAN POWER APPARATUS CORPORATION