Mucha v. Wagner
| Decision Date | 02 June 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. COA18-1133,COA18-1133 |
| Court | North Carolina Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Marisa MUCHA, Plaintiff, v. Logan WAGNER, Defendant. |
Parrott Law PLLC, by Robert J. Parrott Jr., for defendant-appellant.
No appellee brief filed.
Erik R. Zimmerman and Andrew R. Wagner, court-appointed amicus curiae.
Logan Wagner and Marisa Mucha were in a relationship. Mucha ended the relationship and asked Wagner not to contact her again. At the time, Mucha was a college student in South Carolina and Wagner lived in Connecticut. Mucha later moved to North Carolina and, the day she moved, Wagner called her 28 times on her cell phone.
In one of the early calls, Mucha answered and told Wagner not to call her again. In a later call, Wagner left a voice message. When Mucha listened to the message, she suffered a panic attack. The next day, she filed a pro se complaint and motion for a domestic violence protective order in Wake County District Court.
Wagner appeared solely to contest personal jurisdiction. The trial court denied his motion to dismiss and entered a protective order. Wagner appealed.
As explained below, the trial court properly determined that it could exercise personal jurisdiction over Wagner. Although Wagner did not know at the time of the calls that Mucha moved from South Carolina to North Carolina that day, he knew that her semester of college had ended and she may no longer be residing there. Thus, his conduct—purposefully directed at Mucha—was sufficient for him to reasonably anticipate being haled into court wherever Mucha resided when she received the calls. Applying the due process factors established by the Supreme Court—the nature and context of Wagner's contacts within our State; our State's interest in protecting its residents from this sort of harmful interpersonal interaction; and the convenience to the parties, including Mucha's need to call witnesses of the events who were with her in North Carolina at the time—we hold that a North Carolina court properly could exercise personal jurisdiction over Wagner in this action.
Marisa Mucha previously was in a relationship with Logan Wagner. That relationship ended in December 2017. Wagner lives in Connecticut. At the end of their relationship, Mucha lived in South Carolina where she was attending college, but she regularly traveled to Connecticut to visit her family.
In early 2018, while living in South Carolina, Mucha ceased contact with Wagner because she was having "severe panic attacks" and determined that contact from Wagner "would trigger those panic attacks." Mucha told Wagner not to contact her again at some point in January 2018 and again in early May 2018.
Later in May, Wagner saw pictures of Mucha on social media that gave him "cause for concern." One of the pictures, which is included in the record, contains captions indicating that Mucha had concluded "final exams" and that "this semester has truly been the worst."
On 15 May 2018, between 10:00 p.m. and midnight, Mucha received a total of 28 phone calls on her cell phone. The calls all came from an unknown number. On the third or fourth call, Mucha answered her phone and asked who it was. It was Wagner. Mucha "got scared" and "hung up." She answered one more time after that and told Wagner not to contact her again. Wagner continued calling and left a voicemail. After listening to the voicemail, Mucha had a panic attack.
Earlier that day, around 3:00 p.m., Mucha moved from South Carolina to North Carolina. The record does not contain any explanation of why Mucha moved but, as noted above, a social media post included in the record indicates that her college semester in South Carolina had ended.
The next day, Mucha filed a pro se complaint and motion for a domestic violence protective order in Wake County District Court. She explained that she sought a protective order because she was scared Wagner "was trying to find me – my location."
Wagner moved to dismiss Mucha's complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction. In an accompanying affidavit, he testified that he lives in Connecticut, has no connection to North Carolina, and did not know Mucha had moved to North Carolina until he received notice of her court filings.
On 13 June 2018, the trial court heard both Wagner's motion to dismiss and Mucha's motion for a domestic violence protective order. Wagner appeared solely to contest personal jurisdiction. Mucha testified about various jurisdictional facts, including her relationship with Wagner, her decision to cease contact with him, her efforts to inform him of that decision, the 28 phone calls she received on 15 May 2018 while living in North Carolina, and her resulting panic attack. Other witnesses who were present on the night of the calls also testified about Mucha's reaction and her panic attack.
After hearing the jurisdictional testimony, the trial court announced that it was denying Wagner's motion to dismiss because North Carolina "does have jurisdiction over Mr. Wagner" but explained to Wagner's counsel that "you can't appeal anything until it's reduced to writing and entered." After further testimony, the trial court announced that it was granting Mucha's motion for a domestic violence protective order. The trial court entered the protective order later that day. Two weeks later, on 27 June 2018, the trial court entered an order denying Wagner's motion to dismiss, accompanied by jurisdictional findings of fact and conclusions of law.
Wagner timely appealed. Mucha, who represented herself in the trial court, did not appear in the appellate proceedings or file an appellee's brief. Because of the importance of the jurisdictional questions Wagner raised in his briefing, this Court appointed amicus curiae to brief and argue in defense of the trial court's ruling.
Wagner argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction because he did not have sufficient minimum contacts to subject him to personal jurisdiction in North Carolina. We reject this argument and hold that, based on the particular facts of this case, the trial court's finding of personal jurisdiction was supported by jurisdictional facts concerning Wagner's contacts with Mucha while she was present in our State.
When a trial court makes findings of fact in its ruling on a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, "our review is limited to whether the trial court's findings of fact are supported by competent evidence in the record and whether the conclusions of law are supported by the findings of fact." State ex rel. Cooper v. Ridgeway Brands Mfg., LLC , 188 N.C. App. 302, 304, 655 S.E.2d 446, 448 (2008). We review the trial court's conclusions of law concerning personal jurisdiction de novo. Carolina Power & Light Co. v. City of Asheville , 358 N.C. 512, 517, 597 S.E.2d 717, 721 (2004).
"To determine if foreign defendants may be subjected to personal jurisdiction in this State," we must "determine whether our courts can constitutionally exercise such jurisdiction consistent with due process of law." Schofield v. Schofield , 78 N.C. App. 657, 659, 338 S.E.2d 132, 133–34 (1986). Our courts can exercise this jurisdiction only if the defendant has sufficient "minimum contacts" with our State that "the maintenance of the suit does not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice." Int'l Shoe Co. v. Washington , 326 U.S. 310, 316, 66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945).
This due process test "require[s] that individuals have fair warning that a particular activity may subject [them] to the jurisdiction of a foreign sovereign." Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz , 471 U.S. 462, 472, 105 S.Ct. 2174, 85 L.Ed.2d 528 (1985). The "fair warning requirement" can be satisfied "if the defendant has purposefully directed his activities at residents of the forum, and the litigation results from alleged injuries that arise out of or relate to those activities." Id. (citations omitted). "[T]he constitutional touchstone remains whether the defendant purposefully established ‘minimum contacts’ in the forum State." Id. at 474, 105 S.Ct. 2174.
Because the test focuses on this purposeful availment, it has a foreseeability component. "[T]he foreseeability that is critical to due process analysis ... is that the defendant's conduct and connection with the forum State are such that he should reasonably anticipate being haled into court there." Id. Id. at 477, 105 S.Ct. 2174 (citation omitted). In short, this jurisdictional analysis does not lend itself to bright-line rules; whether sufficient contacts exist "depends upon the particular facts of each individual case." Saxon v. Smith , 125 N.C. App. 163, 173, 479 S.E.2d 788, 794 (1997).
Wagner frames the issue in this case as one involving his lack of knowledge of Mucha's physical location. Wagner had no contacts with North Carolina beyond the 28 phone calls he made to Mucha's phone the day she moved to our State. And he contends that "he had no reason to think Mucha was in North Carolina at the time of those alleged phone calls" because his only information about her whereabouts was that she was a full-time college student in South...
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Mucha v. Wagner
...for him to reasonably anticipate being haled into court wherever Mucha resided when she received the calls." Mucha v. Wagner , 271 N.C. App. 636, 637–38, 845 S.E.2d 443 (2020).II. Personal Jurisdiction Analysis¶ 6 The reason Wagner's phone calls to Mucha brought him into contact with North ......