Howell v. Komori America Corp.

• Decision Date: 19 March 1993
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 1:91-cv-3114-HLM.
• Parties: James N. HOWELL and Sandra Howell, Plaintiffs, v. KOMORI AMERICA CORP., Komori Printing Machinery Company, Ltd., and Komori Corporation, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Georgia

816 F. Supp. 1547

James N. HOWELL and Sandra Howell, Plaintiffs, v. KOMORI AMERICA CORP., Komori Printing Machinery Company, Ltd., and Komori Corporation, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 1:91-cv-3114-HLM.

United States District Court, N.D. Georgia, Atlanta Division.

March 19, 1993.

William J. McKenney, David Mark Kupsky, McKenney & Froelich, Atlanta, GA, for plaintiffs.

James B. Hiers, Jr., John Wallace Campbell, Swift Currie McGhee & Hiers, Atlanta, GA, for defendants.

ORDER

HAROLD L. MURPHY, District Judge.

This case is before the Court on Defendant Komori Corporation's Motion to Dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. The relevant facts pertaining to this particular motion are undisputed. Komori Corporation is the Japanese corporation who manufactured the Lithrone 2000 press which allegedly caused Plaintiff James Howell's injuries. The press was manufactured in Japan and shipped to the United States, where it was unloaded and warehoused in Savannah, Georgia. Subsequently, it was purchased by a company in Memphis, Tennessee, and traveled through Georgia on its way to Memphis. Mr. Howell is a citizen of Georgia, employed by a Georgia corporation to install the Lithrone 2000 press. Mr. Howell traveled to Memphis, Tennessee to install the press and was injured during the installation. Thereafter, Mr. Howell filed the instant action in the Northern District of Georgia and asserts that personal jurisdiction exists over Komori Corporation based on diversity and Georgia's Long Arm statute, O.C.G.A. § 9-10-91. Plaintiffs state in their complaint that they are residents of Dallas, Georgia, while Komori Corporation is a foreign corporation not registered to do business in Georgia.

In the instant motion, Defendant Komori Corporation contends that this Court does not have personal jurisdiction over it because neither the alleged tortious act nor injury occurred in Georgia. Defendant claims that one or the other of these requirements must occur in Georgia for the Long Arm statute to apply. Plaintiffs argue, however, that neither of these items must occur in Georgia for the Long Arm statute to apply and for personal jurisdiction to attach because the Georgia courts have interpreted the Georgia Long Arm statute to extend to the full scope of federal due process, thereby negating the need to have the injury or act occur in Georgia. Plaintiffs state that as long as minimum contacts exist between Georgia and Komori Corporation and this Court's assertion of personal jurisdiction does not violate traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice, the fact that neither the injury not the tortious act occurred in Georgia is irrelevant. For the reasons stated below, the Court disagrees with Plaintiffs' argument and concludes that it does not have personal jurisdiction over Komori Corporation in this cause of action because the Long Arm statute does not apply in this case as neither the alleged tortious act nor injury occurred in Georgia.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

In this case, as this Court has not held an evidentiary hearing, Plaintiffs need only to establish a prima facie case of jurisdiction over the non-resident defendant.¹ Vermeulen v. Renault U.S.A., Inc., 975 F.2d 746, 748 (11th Cir.1992).² "A prima facie case is established if the plaintiff presents sufficient evidence to defeat a motion for directed verdict." Id. (citing Morris v. SSE, Inc., 843 F.2d 489, 492 (11th Cir.1988)). The Court must take Plaintiffs' allegations as true to the extent they are uncontradicted, and if they are contradicted the Court must construe all reasonable inferences in Plaintiffs favor. Vermeulen, 975 F.2d at 748.

GEORGIA'S LONG ARM STATUTE

For this Court to exercise personal jurisdiction over Komori Corporation in this diversity case, "there must exist both a constitutionally sufficient relationship between Komori and Georgia, i.e., minimum contacts, and a basis for Komori's amenability to service of summons." Delong Equip. Co. v. Washington Mills Abrasive, 840 F.2d 843, 847 (11th Cir.1988), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1081, 110 S.Ct. 1813, 108 L.Ed.2d 943 (1990). To determine if personal jurisdiction exists, "first the Court must decide whether the defendant is amenable to suit under the state statute, as determined by the law of the state. Second, if the first step is met, the court must then decide whether the assertion of personal jurisdiction over the defendant meets federal due process requirements." Bond v. Octagon Process, Inc., 745 F.Supp. 710, 711 (M.D.Ga.1990), aff'd, 926 F.2d 1573 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 111 S.Ct. 2855, 115 L.Ed.2d 1023 (1991). See J. FRIEDENTHAL, M. KAY & A. MILLER, CIVIL PROCEDURE HB, at 139-42 (1985).

O.C.G.A. § 9-10-94 provides that a non-resident defendant Komori may be served with process in the same manner as a resident if the non-resident is subject to Georgia's Long Arm statute, O.C.G.A. § 9-10-91. Georgia's Long Arm statute states:

A Court of this state may exercise personal jurisdiction over any non-resident ..., as to a cause of action arising from any of the acts ... 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:

(2) Commits a tortious act or omission within this state, except as to a cause of action for defamation of character arising from the act;

(3) Commits a tortious injury in this state caused by an act or omission outside this state if the tort-feasor regularly does or solicits business, or engages in any other persistent course of conduct, or derives substantial revenue from goods used or consumed or services rendered in this state; ....

O.C.G.A. § 9-10-91(2), (3) (emphasis added).³ "Since the reach of the Georgia Long Arm statute is a question of Georgia state law, federal courts are required to construe it as would the Georgia Supreme Court." Moore v. Lindsey, 662 F.2d 354, 358 (5th Cir.1981). Thus, unless either the tortious act or the tortious injury actually occurs in Georgia, the Long Arm statute would not apply to an action sounding in tort and this Court would not have personal jurisdiction over the non-resident defendant.⁴ See Gust v. Flint, 257 Ga. 129, 130, 356 S.E.2d 513 (1987) ("The rule that controls is our statute, which requires that an out of state defendant must do certain acts within the State of Georgia before he can be subjected to personal jurisdiction. Where, as here it is shown that no such acts were committed, there is no jurisdiction.") (emphasis added); Whitaker v. Krestmark of Ala., 157 Ga.App. 536, 537, 278 S.E.2d 116 (1981) ("It is unquestioned that in the present case both the allegedly tortious act and the resulting injury occurred within ... Alabama.... Accordingly, subsections two and three of the Long Arm statute are not applicable and the Court cannot hinge jurisdiction on these sections."); Lutz v. Chrysler Corp., 691 F.2d 996, 997 (11th Cir.1982) ("The allegedly tortious conduct took place in California and the injury said to have resulted from this conduct occurred in Tennessee.... So subsections 2 and 3 are not applicable."); Stacy v. Hilton Head Seafood Co., 688 F.Supp. 599, 604 (S.D.Ga.1988) ("In actions sounding in tort, Georgia's Long Arm statute will support the exercise of personal jurisdiction only if either the tortious act or the resulting injury occurred in Georgia. Here, both the tortious acts alleged and the resulting injuries occurred outside of Georgia. Accordingly, the Long Arm statute will not support jurisdiction.")

In the case sub judice, the allegedly tortious act occurred in Japan where the Lithrone 2000 press was designed and manufactured and the allegedly tortious injury occurred in Tennessee when Mr. Howell was installing the equipment. Consequently, as Plaintiff has not been able to establish a prima facie case of jurisdiction because neither the tortious act nor injury occurred in Georgia, this case does not come under the auspices of the Long Arm statute and this Court does not have personal jurisdiction over the non-resident defendant Komori Corporation.

ELEVENTH CIRCUIT PRECEDENT

Plaintiffs base their main argument in this motion on several Eleventh Circuit opinions. These opinions seemingly state that federal courts, deciding whether they have personal jurisdiction over the non-resident defendant, should ignore the literal language of the state's Long Arm statute, where the state supreme court for the state in which the federal court sits has interpreted the state's Long Arm statute to "confer jurisdiction to the limits allowed by federal due process."⁵Vermeulen v. Renault U.S.A., Inc., 975 F.2d 746, 753 (11th Cir.1992). See id. at 754 n. 14;⁶Olivier v. Merritt Dredging Co., Inc., 979 F.2d 827, 830 (11th Cir.1992);⁷Complete Concepts Ltd. v. General Handbag Corp., 880 F.2d 382, 388 (11th Cir.1989); Delong Equip. Co. v. Washington Mills Abrasive, 840 F.2d 843 (11th Cir.1988); Bond v. Octagon Process, Inc., 745 F.Supp. 710 (M.D.Ga.1990), aff'd, 926 F.2d 1573 (11th Cir.1991). While Plaintiffs argument does seem to draw strength from these opinions, this Court finds such argument unpersuasive. What Plaintiffs overlook in their argument is that in all of these cases the incident giving rise to the lawsuit met one of the statutory requirements of the applicable Long Arm statute, even though the appeals court did not specifically delineate this fact in the opinion.

In Vermeulen, the car accident in question occurred in Lawrenceville, Georgia, so subsection three of the statute applied. Vermeulen, 975 F.2d at 748. In Delong, the injury occurred in Georgia because the alleged anti-trust conspiracy prevented the plaintiff from buying the necessary material for his business located in Georgia; thus, subsection three applied. Delong, 840 F.2d at 845. In Complete Concepts, the Court determined that the defendants transacted business in Georgia so that personal jurisdiction for the breach of contract claim could be maintained...