Hudye Soil Services, Inc. v. Tyler
| Decision Date | 08 April 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. 98-1286-JTM.,98-1286-JTM. |
| Citation | 46 F.Supp.2d 1157 |
| Parties | HUDYE SOIL SERVICES, INC., Plaintiff, v. JOHN TYLER, Wheaties, Inc., John Walker, Jim Baker and KB Samplers, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Kansas |
Kent G. Voth, Triplett, Woolf & Garretson, LLC, Wichita, KS, Grant M. Glenn, Woner, Glenn, Reeder & Girard, Topeka, KS, Michael V. Foust, Goodland, KS, for plaintiff.
Karry E. McQueen, Sharp, McQueen, McKinley, Dreiling, Morain & Tate, P.A., Liberal, KS, for John Tyler, Wheaties, Inc., defendants.
Robert E. Durrett, Coombs & Durrett,Chartered, Wichita, KA, Paul S. McCausland, Young, Bogle, McCausland, Wells & Blanchard, Wichita, KS, for John Walker, Jim Baker, defendants.
John Walker and Jim Baker are named as individual defendants in this case. They have filed a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and improper venue pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(2) and (3) or in the alternative to dismiss under the doctrine of forum non conveniens. Plaintiff has responded and Mr. Walker and Mr. Baker have filed a reply. After reviewing the parties' submissions, the court finds it is without personal jurisdiction over Mr. Walker and Mr. Baker. For the reasons set forth below, their motion to dismiss is granted.
Plaintiff is a corporation, organized under the laws of and having its principal place of business in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada. John Tyler is a Kansas resident who is affiliated with the defendant, Wheaties, Inc. ("Wheaties"), a corporation organized under the laws of the state of Kansas. John Walker is a resident of Casa Grande, Arizona and is engaged in farming and custom harvesting in Arizona. He performs custom harvesting through a corporation, John Walker Trucking, Inc. ("JWT"). Jim Baker is a resident of Spearman, Texas, and is engaged in custom harvesting throughout the Southwest, Rocky Mountains and Great Plains.1
Plaintiff entered into a series of Equipment Rental Agreements with Mr. Tyler and Wheaties to rent one John Deere 8400 tractor, eight John Deere combines and eight platforms. The parties entered into the agreement for the tractor in 1995, and they entered into the agreement for the combines and platforms in 1996.
In the spring of 1996, the United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) threatened to ban the harvesting of the 1996 Arizona wheat crop because of a potential infestation by a fungus known as Karnal Bunt. APHIS conducted several public meetings with Arizona farmers and custom harvesters to discuss the sampling protocol to be required by APHIS and the possible method for carrying out sampling in order for Arizona's 1996 wheat harvest to proceed. Mr. Tyler initially learned about the Karnal Bunt problem in Arizona on the news. He contacted Mr. Walker and told him they should contact APHIS to see if they could provide assistance in testing the wheat fields. At one of the APHIS meetings, Mr. Walker proposed a method to complete sampling of the Arizona wheat fields within a time period that would permit completion of the 1996 wheat harvest.
As a result of Mr. Walker's proposal, JWT, as general contractor, entered into an agreement with APHIS to conduct the sampling for the entire state of Arizona. JWT subcontracted the harvesting work to Field Samplers, L.L.C. ("FS"), an Arizona limited liability company created by JWT and Wheaties to harvest samples and further subcontract sampling work to other custom harvesters. Shortly after its inception, Mr. Baker d/b/a Baker Harvesting, joined FS as a member.
FS did business as and was sometimes referred to as "KB Samplers" in connection with the sampling program. No separate legal entity or partnership operating under the name KB Samplers has or did exist.
Numerous custom harvesters participated in the sampling program.2 The contract between APHIS and JWT required all combines used for the Karnal Bunt sampling program to be sanitized with a sodium hypochlorite solution after collecting each sample. The sanitation process caused damage to nearly all combines involved in the sampling program. As a result of the damage to combines owned and/or leased by JWT, Jim Baker, and Wheaties,3 JWT, the general contractor, and FS presented federal tort claims to APHIS in Arizona. APHIS settled individual property damage claims with JWT, Baker Harvesting, and Wheaties pursuant to a confidential settlement agreement executed on May 19 and 21, 1997.
After the settlement agreement was reached, Mr. Walker had limited contacts with plaintiff within the state of Arizona by mail or telephone,4 but Mr. Baker had no personal conversations or correspondence with plaintiff about matters alleged in the complaint. Mr. Walker and Mr. Baker claim that all transactions allegedly giving rise to claims against them occurred within the state of Arizona. Plaintiff concedes the sampling work under the APHIS contract was performed in Arizona and that the equipment was damaged in Arizona. It does not dispute the confidential settlement agreement was executed in Arizona. However, plaintiff contends that all three individual defendants transacted business in Kansas, resulting in the transport of its property from Kansas to Arizona for the benefit of Mr. Walker and Mr. Baker. Mr. Walker and Mr. Baker have supplemented their reply to include information that illustrates the combines plaintiff leased to Wheaties had very little connection to Kansas.5
Plaintiff alleges that Mr. Tyler and Wheaties are in default in their payments under the rental agreements, further alleging that Mr. Tyler issued two insufficient funds checks to plaintiff in the total amount of $154,125.00. Plaintiff also appears to be seeking compensation for the damage to its combines from the sanitation process. Among other things, plaintiff alleges that a constructive trust was formed with the APHIS settlement proceeds, requiring the defendants to pay plaintiff those proceeds and that the defendants breached a duty by failing to do so. It claims the defendants have been unjustly enriched by their wrongdoing.
Mr. Walker and Mr. Baker have moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and improper venue. The standard that governs a Rule 12(b)(2) motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction is well-established:
The plaintiff bears the burden of establishing personal jurisdiction over the defendant. Prior to trial, however, when a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction is decided on the basis of affidavits and other written materials, the plaintiff need only make a prima facie showing. The allegations in the complaint must be taken as true to the extent that they are uncontroverted by the defendant's affidavits. If the parties present conflicting affidavits, all factual disputes are resolved in the plaintiff's favor, and the plaintiff's prima facie showing is sufficient notwithstanding the contrary presentation by the moving party.
Behagen v. Amateur Basketball Ass'n, 744 F.2d 731, 733 (10th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1010, 105 S.Ct. 1879, 85 L.Ed.2d 171 (1985) (citations omitted); Key Indus., Inc. v. O'Doski, Sellers & Clark, Inc., 872 F.Supp. 858, 860-61 (D.Kan.1994).
Likewise, upon a defendant's challenge to venue, the plaintiff has the burden of establishing that venue is proper in the forum state. M.K.C. Equip. Co. v. M.A.I.L. Code, Inc., 843 F.Supp. 679, 682 (D.Kan.1994). The court uses basically the same procedure to decide a motion to dismiss for improper venue as it does for deciding a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. Id.
In analyzing a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, the court must conduct a two-part inquiry. First, it must determine if the defendants' conduct falls within one of the provisions of the forum state's long arm statute, which in this case is Kan. Stat. Ann. § 60-308(b). Second, the court must determine whether the defendants had sufficient "minimum contacts" with the forum state to satisfy the constitutional guarantee of due process. Equifax Servs., Inc. v. Hitz, 905 F.2d 1355, 1357 (10th Cir.1990); Electronic Realty Assocs., L.P. v. Paramount Pictures Corp., 935 F.Supp. 1172, 1175 (D.Kan.1996).
The Kansas long arm statute provides in part as follows:
Submitting to jurisdiction — process. Any person, whether or not a citizen or resident of this state, who in person or through an agent or instrumentality does any of the acts hereinafter enumerated, thereby submits the person and, if an individual, the individual person's representative, to the jurisdiction of the courts of this state as to any cause of action arising from the doing of any of these acts:
(1)Transaction of any business within this state....6
Kan. Stat. Ann. § 60-308(b). The Kansas long arm statute is to be liberally construed to assert personal jurisdiction over nonresident defendants to the full extent permitted by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In re Hesston Corp., 254 Kan. 941, 951, 870 P.2d 17 (1994).7
The Kansas Supreme Court has addressed what it means to "transact business" within the state:
"Business" is transacted within the state when an individual is within or enters this state in person or by agent and, through dealing with another within the state, effectuates or attempts to effectuate a purpose to improve his economic conditions and satisfy his desires. The transaction of business exists when the nonresident purposefully does some act or consummates some transaction in the forum state.
Volt Delta Resources, Inc. v. Devine, 241 Kan. 775, 778, 740 P.2d 1089 (1987) (citations omitted). With the advent of modern technology, a defendant need not physically enter the state to transact business within its borders. Environmental Ventures, Inc. v. Alda...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Wempe v. Sunrise Medical Hhg, Inc.
...venue is basically the same as that used in deciding a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. Hudye Soil Services, Inc. v. Tyler, 46 F.Supp.2d 1157, 1161 (D.Kan.1999). The defendant Sunrise argues this action should be dismissed for lack of venue. In his complaint, the plainti......
-
Mohr v. Margolis, Ainsworth & Kinlaw Consulting
...1414, 1422 (D.Kan.1993). "The forum activities must have been events significant to the plaintiff's claims." Hudye Soil Serv., Inc. v. Tyler, 46 F.Supp.2d 1157, 1163 (D.Kan. 1999). In Wempe, the court found that venue was proper in Kansas "even though the defendant's activities in Texas may......
-
Goldberg v. Cameron
...dismiss for improper venue as it does for deciding a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction." Hudye Soil Services, Inc. v. Tyler, 46 F.Supp.2d 1157, 1161 (D.Kan.1999). Where, as here, the motion to dismiss is based on written materials rather than an evidentiary hearing, Goldbe......
-
Allison v. Wise
...1986). Thus, for present purposes, the personal jurisdiction and venue issues are essentially identical. Hudye Soil Services, Inc. v. Tyler, 46 F.Supp.2d 1157, 1161 (D.Kan.1999). 3. Based on these facts, and the complete absence of any pertinent allegation to the contrary in the First Amend......