NRM Corp. v. Pacific Plastic Pipe Co.
| Decision Date | 24 January 1973 |
| Citation | 36 Ohio App.2d 179,304 N.E.2d 248 |
| Parties | , 65 O.O.2d 261 NRM CORP., Appellant, v. PACIFIC PLASTIC PIPE CO., Appellee. |
| Court | Ohio Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court
An order for the purchase of machinery by an Oregon corporation from an Ohio corporation was signed and mailed in Oregon. The entire transaction was intiated and completed by sales agents of the Ohio corporation in Oregon. The machinery was manufactured in Ohio and shipped to and used in Oregon; it was not custom made to plans or specifications detailed by the Oregon corporation. Held: The transaction does not establish such 'minimum contacts' in Ohio so as to charge the Oregon corporation with 'transacting any business in Ohio' which would thereby subject it to the jurisdiction of the Ohio courts, under R.C. 2307.382.
Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs, and Duane Morris, Akron, for appellant.
Brouse & McDowell, Linda Kersker and Norman S. Carr, Akron, for appellee.
NRM Corporation, an Ohio corporation, filed an action in the Court of Common Pleas of Summit County, Ohio, on an account for the price of machinery sold and delivered to the defendant, Pacific Plastic Pipe Company, an Oregon corporation. Service was obtained in Oregon upon Pacific.
Pacific filed a motion to dismiss the action on the grounds of improper venue, insufficiency of process and of the service thereof, and for lack of jurisdiction over its person. The trial court granted the motion, and dismissed the action on the ground that it lacked jurisdiction over the person of Pacific for the reason that the corporation had not transacted any business in Ohio. NRM contends that, in making this order, the trial court erred.
The sole question involved is the reach of the Ohio 'long-arm' statute (R.C. 2307.382), which provides, in part:
'(A) 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:
'(1) Transacting any business in this state * * *;' and Civil Rule 4.3(A)(1) authorizing service outside Ohio upon non-resident corporations 'transacting any business in this state.'
Historically, the jurisdiction of state courts, to enter judgment in personam on a nonresident, was grounded on personal service of process upon him within the state, or his appearance in the action upon service by publication. Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714, 24 L.Ed. 565.
With the growth of the corporate form of doing business an extension of the rule of actual presence within the forum was declared necessary by Chief Justice Stone, in International Shoe Company v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310 at 316, 66 S.Ct. 154, at 158, 90 L.Ed. 95, where, speaking for the court, he said that due process (under the 14th Amendment) 'requires only that in order to subject a defendant to 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. " This case was the basis for the enactment, by the states, of the socalled 'long-arm' statutes.
The question, then, in this case is: Does Pacific have such minimum contacts in Ohio that would constitute the 'transacting of any business' within Ohio so as to subject it to the jurisdiction of the Ohio courts?
The instant case was submitted to the trial court upon the complaint and the affidavits of the parties. From them, we extract the following:
NRM maintained a factory representative in Seattle, Washington. This representative visited Pacific in Oregon some time in 1967. In April of 1968, as a result of these negotiations, Pacific mailed its own purchase order to NRM Corporation in Akron, Ohio. By means of this order, and other orders, Pacific agreed to buy, from NRM, pipe...
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