Lamprecht v. Piper Aircraft Corp., 404

• Decision Date: 12 May 1971
• Docket Number: No. 404,404
• Citation: 262 Md. 126,277 A.2d 272
• Parties: Jerome LAMPRECHT, etc. v. PIPER AIRCRAFT CORPORATION.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 126

262 Md. 126

277 A.2d 272

Jerome LAMPRECHT, etc. v. PIPER AIRCRAFT CORPORATION.

No. 404.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

May 12, 1971.

B. Ford Davis, Baltimore (Wilbur D. Preston, Jr., Whiteford, Taylor, Preston, Trimble & Johnston and George C. Evering, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.

Charles E. Iliff, Jr., Baltimore (John H. Mudd and Semmes, Bowen & Semmes, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Argued before HAMMOND, C. J., and BARNES, McWILLIAMS, SINGLEY and SMITH, JJ.

HAMMOND, Chief Judge.

In 1969 Jerome Lamprecht, who had bought a Comanche airplane manufactured by Piper Aircraft Corporation (Piper) from Friendship Flying Service, Inc. (Friendship), sued both corporations in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County to recover damages suffered when he made a forced landing in Maryland, alleging negligence and breach of warranties as to a defective muffler system that brought about the crash. The question at issue is whether Piper, a Pennsylvania corporation, can be brought into the Maryland Court under the long arm statute. Judge Childs held that it could not.

Lamprecht is an individual who resides in Maryland. Piper has its principal place of business in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. It manufactures planes in Lock Haven and in Vero Beach, Florida. It uniformly sells the planes it makes to independent distributors, who in turn sell through dealers such as Friendship. The distributor for Maryland dealers is located in Manassas, Virginia. Transfer takes place at the factory with the distributor taking possession on a 'fly away factory' basis.

Lamprecht stresses that Piper uses regularly a national advertising campaign in magazines such as Business Week and Time to promote the sale of Piper aircraft and the use of flight training courses to be given at a Piper Flight Center (local dealers). If a Maryland resident writes Piper in response to a sales advertisement, he is sent price lists, pamphlets describing various Piper models, and 'Piper user reports' stressing the worth, virtue and desirability of Piper planes, and a letter signed by Piper's Director of Domestic Sales telling the Maryland inquirer that he will be contacted by 'our representative in your area.' If a Maryland resident writes Piper about flying lessons, he is sent a certificate worth $5 towards the regular price for lessons, a booklet on the possibility of purchasing a plane in partnership with others, an advertising pamphlet on a particular plane, and a letter from the sales director saying that 'Your nearest Piper Flight Center will contact you * * *.' Piper sends what it calls 'a (Maryland) Prospect Reference Form' to the Virginia distributor which must be returned promptly to Piper. Piper regularly corresponds with Maryland owners and operators of Piper planes with regard to proper maintenance and service. Piper says Friendship routinely purchases Piper planes from the Virginia distributor.

Piper stresses these considerations. It has not qualified to do business in Maryland, it has no resident agent here, it does not itself sell or deliver to anyone in Maryland, and derives no direct revenue from any transaction in Maryland. Although the national advertising and the subsequent mail advertising contemplate contact between a prospective purchaser and a dealer in Maryland, Piper does not itself contact or deal with the Maryland dealer. Dealers are established by the distributors. No part of any communication from Piper, either to the prospect or the distributor suggests or solicits any order or other transaction between the Maryland resident and Piper. Although Piper sends service and maintenance bulletins to Maryland owners and operators, there is no evidence that any servant of Piper ever engages in any activity within Maryland or, indeed, has ever entered Maryland.

Code (1969 Repl.Vol.), Art. 75, § 96(a), as it read in 1969 in the parts here pertinent, provided that:

'A court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a person, who acts directly or by an agent, as to a cause of action arising from the person's

'(4) Causing tortious injury in this State by an act or omission outside the State if he regularly does or solicits business, engages in any other persistent course of conduct in this State or derives substantial revenue from food or services used or consumed in this State * * *.'

By Ch. 540 of the Laws of 1970, effective July 1, 1970, the Legislature added to 'food and services' as producers of substantial revenue 'goods' and 'manufactured products' so that the clause read: 'or derives substantial revenue from goods, food, services or manufactured products used or consumed in this State.' Both sides agree that the law as it stood in 1969 is what is now before us and that under that law, if Piper is to be subject to in personam jurisdiction for its act or omission outside Maryland that caused tortious injury in Maryland, it must regularly do or solicit business or engage in any other persistent course of conduct in the State.

Lamprecht urges earnestly that Piper both solicits business and engages in a persistent course of action in this State. He relies on the statement of Professor Auerbach in his article 'The 'Long Arm' Comes to Maryland,' 26 Md.L.Rev. 13, 43 (quoted by us in Vitro Electronics, etc. v. Milgray Electronics, Inc., 255 Md. 498, 505-506, 258 A.2d 749), in which in reference to soliciting business or engaging in any other persistent course of conduct in the State the author says:

'Decisions which provide the authority for this formulation include such paterns of conduct as direct solicitation by sales representatives in the state, the sending of price lists to customers through the mails, general mail advertising combined with advertising in periodicals circulated in the state, participation with the locally franchised dealer in...