Markby v. St. Anthony Hosp. Systems

• Decision Date: 09 July 1982
• Docket Number: No. 5661,5661
• Citation: 647 P.2d 1068
• Parties: Velda MARKBY, as personal representative of the and Administratrix of the Estate of Violet L. Petsch, and as personal representative for Velda Markby and Mary Reeb, daughters of Violet L. Petsch, Appellants (Plaintiffs), v. ST. ANTHONY HOSPITAL SYSTEMS, a nonprofit Colorado corporation and John and Jane Does 1-100, Appellees (Defendants).
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Page 1068

647 P.2d 1068

Velda MARKBY, as personal representative of the and Administratrix of the Estate of Violet L. Petsch, and as personal representative for Velda Markby and Mary Reeb, daughters of Violet L. Petsch, Appellants (Plaintiffs), v. ST. ANTHONY HOSPITAL SYSTEMS, a nonprofit Colorado corporation and John and Jane Does 1-100, Appellees (Defendants).

No. 5661.

Supreme Court of Wyoming.

July 9, 1982.

Rehearing Denied Aug. 3, 1982.

Bradley L. Booke and Michael L. Cooper (argued), Lander, for appellants.

Frank D. Neville (argued), Richard L. Williams and Patricia M. Baird of Williams, Porter, Day & Neville, P. C., Casper, for appellees.

Before ROSE, C. J., and RAPER, THOMAS, ROONEY and BROWN, JJ.

RAPER, Justice.

This is an appeal from the dismissal of a complaint alleging wrongful death. The district court's action was premised upon a finding that it lacked personal jurisdiction over the defendant. Accordingly the only issue on appeal is whether the district court's conclusion was correct.

We will affirm.

On August 25, 1981, appellant, as the personal representative of Violet Petsch's estate, initiated a wrongful-death action against appellee. The complaint claimed that appellee had failed to properly care for Petsch while she had been a patient in appellee St. Anthony Hospital in Denver, Colorado. Specifically it was alleged that on August 12, 1979, Petsch had entered St. Anthony Hospital in Denver. At that time Petsch was seventy-two years old and in generally good health except for circulatory problems in her legs. Vascular surgery to remove obstructions from the femoral arteries was performed on August 21, 1979. Following the surgery, on the night of August 30, 1979, Petsch was still connected to an intravenous bottle through which she received medication and sedatives. Apparently that night hospital personnel negligently failed not only to raise the guardrail on Petsch's bed, but also to maintain an adequate watch over her. As a result, she disconnected the intravenous bottle and left her room. She was found at approximately 6:00 a.m. on August 31, 1979, lying unconscious in the hospital's sun room. It was determined that Petsch had suffered a subdural hematoma, presumably from a fall in which she hit her head. Though emergency surgery was performed, Petsch never recovered and her death in Riverton, Wyoming on January 29, 1981 resulted from the head injury.

Appellee made a special appearance on October 14, 1981 to move for the complaint's dismissal upon the basis of improper jurisdiction. An affidavit of appellee's executive vice president was attached in which it was asserted that appellee had not and did not do business in Wyoming, and furthermore, that all Petsch's treatment by appellee had occurred in Colorado.

Interrogatories prepared by appellant were answered by appellee on November 6, 1981. In her memorandum of points and authorities in opposition to the motion to dismiss, appellant outlined certain facts admitted by appellee in its answers to the interrogatories as follows:

"St. Anthony's admits that Violet Petsch, a Wyoming resident, was treated in its hospital in Denver, Colorado (Exhibit 'A' to Defendant's Motion to Dismiss). From January 1, 1981 to September 30, 1981, Defendant admits that fifty-seven other Wyoming patients spent a total of 545 days in its hospital and paid Defendant $35,241.00 in fees (Exhibit 'A' to Defendant's Answers to Plaintiff's Interrogatories). From January 1, 1980 to December 31, 1980, Defendant admits that two hundred seventy-nine patients spent 1,375 days in Defendant's hospital and paid it $674,093.00. (Id.). Defendant admits that Wyoming patients have been using its hospitals for many years. (Answer to Plaintiff's Interrogatory # 6).

"Defendant admits that it advertises in the yellow pages of various Wyoming telephone books and has been doing so for the last year. The advertisements relate to Defendant's Flight for Life program which is an air ambulance service operated by Defendant in the State of Wyoming (Answers 10 and 23 to Plaintiff's Interrogatories). It is undenied that the service charges a fee.

"Defendant admits that Wyoming doctors have referred patients to Defendant's hospitals (Answer to Plaintiff's Interrogatory # 14), and it does not deny that Wyoming doctors have had telephonic communication with Defendant concerning those doctor's patients (Answer to Plaintiff's Interrogatory # 15).

"Defendant admits that it has cashed checks drawn on Wyoming banks (Answer to Plaintiff's Interrogatory # 18), and that is (it) has received money from the State of Wyoming and from Blue Cross of Wyoming for services rendered by Defendant to Wyoming patients (Answer to Plaintiff's Interrogatory # 26).

"Since 1973, Defendant admits that it has been operating an air ambulance service in the State of Wyoming taking patients from Wyoming to Colorado. The statistics for each year since 1973 are:

"1973-3

1974-1

1975-4

1976-9

1977-13

1978-14

1979-24

1980-24

1981-17 to date.

"(Answer to Plaintiff's Interrogatory # 19)."

These facts, appellant claimed, established that appellee had sufficient minimum contacts with the State of Wyoming to expose it to the jurisdiction of Wyoming state courts.

On January 20, 1982, the district court rejected appellant's argument and granted the motion to dismiss. Specifically, the court predicated its action upon a finding that it, as a Wyoming court, lacked in personam jurisdiction over the defendant to hear the case. On appeal from the dismissal, the question for us to decide is whether the district court was correct in its conclusion.

Section 5-1-107(a), W.S.1977 provides:

"(a) A Wyoming court may exercise jurisdiction on any basis not inconsistent with the Wyoming or United States constitution."

This statute has been held to have extended the jurisdiction of the Wyoming state courts to the constitutional permissible limit. First Wyoming Bank, N. A., Rawlins v. Trans Mountain Sales & Leasing, Inc., Wyo., 602 P.2d 1219 (1979). In other words, the statute authorized the state courts of Wyoming to exercise personal jurisdiction over an individual or a business organization only so long as it would not offend or violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. ¹

The United States Supreme Court has extensively discussed the limits of the Due Process Clause on state court jurisdiction over nonresidents. In International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945) and its progeny, the Court outlined the minimum contacts or substantial fairness test. This test established under what circumstances a state court could constitutionally exercise jurisdiction over nonresident defendants.

In International Shoe Co., supra, the specific question was whether a nonresident corporation was subject to the jurisdiction of the Washington state courts. In that case the Court, after announcing the adoption of the minimum contacts test, described it as follows:

"It is evident that the criteria by which we mark the boundary line between those activities which justify the subjection of a corporation to suit, and those which do not, cannot be simply mechanical or quantitative. The test is not merely, as has sometimes been suggested, whether the activity, which the corporation has seen fit to procure through its agents in another state, is a little more or a little less. (Citations.) Whether due process is satisfied must depend rather upon the quality and nature of the activity in relation to the fair and orderly administration of the laws which it was the purpose of the due process clause to insure. That clause does not contemplate that a state may make binding a judgment in personam against an individual or corporate defendant with which the state has no contacts, ties, or relations. (Citations.)

"But to the extent that a corporation exercises the privilege of conducting activities within a state, it enjoys the benefits and protection of the laws of that state. The exercise of that privilege may give rise to obligations, and, so far as those obligations arise out of or are connected with the activities within the state, a procedure which requires the corporation to respond to a suit brought to enforce them can, in most instances, hardly be said to be undue. (Citations.)" 326 U.S. at 319, 66 S.Ct. at 159-160.

The Supreme Court again discussed the test in McGee v. International Life Insurance Co., 355 U.S. 220, 78 S.Ct. 199, 2 L.Ed.2d 223 (1957). There it upheld California's jurisdiction over an insurance company even though the company's only contact with California was the mailing of an insurance contract into the state. In its opinion, the Court examined the development of the test and the purposes behind it:

"Since Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714 (24 L.Ed. 565), this Court has held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment places some limit on the power of state courts to enter binding judgments against persons not served with process within their boundaries. But just where this line of limitation falls has been the subject of prolific controversy, particularly with respect to foreign corporations. In a continuing process of evolution this Court accepted and then abandoned 'consent,' 'doing business,' and 'presence' as the standard for measuring the extent of state judicial power over such corporations. (Citation.) More recently in International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310 (66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95), the Court decided that 'due process requires only that in order to subject a defendant to a judgment in personam, if he be not present within the territory of the forum, he have certain minimum contacts with it such that the maintenance of the suit does not offend "traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice ".' Id., at 316 (66 S.Ct. at 158).

"Looking back over this long history of litigation a trend is clearly discernible toward...