Roch v. Mollica

• Decision Date: 04 January 2019
• Docket Number: SJC-12517
• Citation: 113 N.E.3d 820,481 Mass. 164
• Parties: Caroline ROCH v. David J. MOLLICA & Another.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

481 Mass. 164

113 N.E.3d 820

Caroline ROCH

v.David J. MOLLICA & Another.¹

SJC-12517

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Worcester..

Argued October 2, 2018

Decided January 4, 2019

Traver Clinton Smith, Jr., Boston, for the plaintiff.

Paul E. Mitchell, Boston, for the defendants.

Jennifer A. Creedon & Meghan L. Morgan, for Massachusetts Defense Lawyers Association, amicus curiae, submitted a brief.

Present (Sitting at Worcester): Gants, C.J., Lenk, Gaziano, Lowy, Budd, Cypher, & Kafker, JJ.

LOWY, J.

The plaintiff, Caroline Roch, a New Jersey resident, sued defendants David and Donna Mollica, New Hampshire residents, in Superior Court for negligence. The claim arose out of an incident in Florida. A deputy sheriff served both defendants with in-hand process in Worcester. The defendants moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction pursuant to Mass. R. Civ. P. 12 (b) (2), 365 Mass. 754 (1974). A Superior Court judge allowed the motion to dismiss; the plaintiff appealed. The judge also denied the plaintiff's motion for reconsideration. We transferred the appeal from the Appeals Court on our own motion.²

We conclude that, as a matter of both State common law and due process, Massachusetts courts have personal jurisdiction over nonresident individuals who are served with process while intentionally, knowingly, and voluntarily in Massachusetts.³ Because the defendants here were served under these circumstances, we reverse the judge's order allowing the defendants' motion to dismiss and remand to the Superior Court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.⁴

Background. "When a defendant moves to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, the plaintiff bears the burden of adducing facts on which jurisdiction may be found.... In considering a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, we accept as true the essential uncontroverted facts that were before the judge" (citation, alteration, and quotations omitted). SCVNGR, Inc. v. Punchh, Inc., 478 Mass. 324, 325 n.3, 85 N.E.3d 50 (2017), quoting Miller v. Miller, 448 Mass. 320, 321, 861 N.E.2d 393 (2007).

The uncontested facts are as follows.⁵ The plaintiff was a freshman member of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute softball team. The defendants are the parents of the team's head coach. During a spring training trip to Florida, the team and coaches visited with the defendants at a house the defendants had rented. The house had a swimming pool. As part of an initiation ritual, without warning, upperclassmen members of the team pushed the freshman members into the pool. The plaintiff hit and injured her shoulder on the edge of the pool. According to the complaint, the defendants "negligently allowed a dangerous act of initiation or hazing to be imposed upon" the plaintiff and "negligently failed to obtain or seek immediate medical attention and/or medical advice for" her. The defendants were served with process while attending a softball game at Worcester State College in Worcester.

The judge held a nonevidentiary hearing on the defendants' motion to dismiss. At the hearing, plaintiff's counsel contended that the Superior Court had personal jurisdiction over the defendants because the defendants were served in Massachusetts. The judge responded that service of process is conceptually distinct from personal jurisdiction, and suggested that personal jurisdiction was improper here because the plaintiff's case had no connection to Massachusetts. The judge allowed the defendants' motion to dismiss in a summary order, reasoning, "Personal service on the Defendants does not confer jurisdiction on the court."

Discussion. Massachusetts courts have personal jurisdiction over any person "domiciled in" the Commonwealth, G. L. c. 223A, § 2, and, in certain circumstances, over nonresidents. The plaintiff argues that under the common-law rule of transient jurisdiction, a nonresident defendant's mere presence in the forum State when served with process confers personal jurisdiction over the defendant.⁶ See Burnham v. Superior Court of Cal., 495 U.S. 604, 629 n.1, 110 S.Ct. 2105, 109 L.Ed.2d 631 (1990) (Brennan, J., concurring) (defining "transient jurisdiction" as "jurisdiction premised solely on the fact that a person is served with process while physically present in the forum State"). We recognized common-law transient jurisdiction as early as the Nineteenth Century. In Peabody v. Hamilton, 106 Mass. 217, 220 (1870), we observed, "When the party is in the state, however transiently, and the summons is actually served upon him there, the jurisdiction of the court is complete, as to the person of the defendant." This was identified as "the general rule of the common law." Id. See Ehrenzweig, The Transient Power of Personal Jurisdiction: The "Power" Myth and Forum Conveniens, 65 Yale L.J. 289, 293-294 (1956) (contesting transient jurisdiction's historical origins but conceding that "there was true transient jurisdiction" in Peabody v. Hamilton ). See also Wright v. Oakley, 5 Met. 400, 402, 46 Mass. 400 (1843) (defendant "personally within [the State's] jurisdiction" is "liable to the jurisdiction of a court of the State").

However, we also have stated that, "[f]or a nonresident to be subject to personal jurisdiction in Massachusetts, there must be a statute authorizing jurisdiction and the exercise of jurisdiction must be ‘consistent with basic due process requirements mandated by the United States Constitution.’ " Bulldog Investors Gen. Partnership v. Secretary of the Commonwealth, 457 Mass. 210, 215, 929 N.E.2d 293 (2010), quoting Intech, Inc. v. Triple "C" Marine Salvage, Inc., 444 Mass. 122, 125, 826 N.E.2d 194 (2005).

Caplan v. Donovan, 450 Mass. 463, 465, 879 N.E.2d 117, cert. denied, 553 U.S. 1018, 128 S.Ct. 2088, 170 L.Ed.2d 817 (2008), quoting Good Hope Indus., Inc. v. Ryder Scott Co., 378 Mass. 1, 5-6, 389 N.E.2d 76 (1979) ("[j]urisdiction is permissible only" if both "authorized by statute" and "consistent with basic due process requirements"). The only personal jurisdiction statute that could possibly apply here is the long-arm statute, G. L. c. 223A, § 3, which requires that the "cause of action ... aris[e] from" at least one of a list of acts or omissions related to Massachusetts.⁷ But, as the plaintiff in essence conceded in oral argument, the long-arm statute does not confer personal jurisdiction here. Instead, the plaintiff contends that the long-arm statute need not be satisfied because the defendants were served with process in Massachusetts.

The Appeals Court has implicitly addressed the tension between common-law transient jurisdiction, on the one hand, and the requirement that personal jurisdiction be conferred by statute, on the other, by stating that the long-arm statute does not apply when there is in-State service of process. See Schinkel v. Maxi-Holding, Inc., 30 Mass. App. Ct. 41, 45, 565 N.E.2d 1219 (1991) ("There is no need to predicate jurisdiction over [defendant] on the long-arm statute. Jurisdiction over his person was conferred by service of process in Boston"). Because we have not yet addressed this tension ourselves, we take the opportunity to clarify that, as a matter of both State common law and due process, Massachusetts courts have personal jurisdiction over nonresident individuals who are served with process while intentionally, knowingly, and voluntarily in Massachusetts.⁸

1. Legislative intent. We first consider whether the numerous statutes that address personal jurisdiction have supplanted the common-law rule of transient jurisdiction and conclude that they have not. "[W]e should not interpret a statute ‘as effecting a material change in or a repeal of the common law unless the intent to do so is clearly expressed.’ " Brear v. Fagan, 447 Mass. 68, 72, 849 N.E.2d 211 (2006), quoting Pineo v. White, 320 Mass. 487, 491, 70 N.E.2d 294 (1946), superseded on other grounds by G. L. c. 209, § 1. We are not aware of a statute that expressly repeals common-law transient jurisdiction, and "[w]e decline to interject such an intent into the plain language of" the jurisdictional statutes. Page v. Commissioner of Revenue, 389 Mass. 388, 392, 450 N.E.2d 590 (1983) (discussing Uniform Commercial Code).⁹ We acknowledge that an intent to repeal the common law "need not be explicitly stated in the statute." Reading Co-Op. Bank v. Suffolk Constr. Co., 464 Mass. 543, 549, 984 N.E.2d 776 (2013). However, we have not found any authority implicitly repealing transient jurisdiction.¹⁰

2. The common-law rule. We also decline to repeal our common-law rule as it applies to defendants who are intentionally, knowingly, and voluntarily in the Commonwealth. See Burnham, 495 U.S. at 627-628, 110 S.Ct. 2105 (opinion of Scalia, J.) (affirming lower court's exercise of transient jurisdiction as matter of due process but observing that "[n]othing we say today prevents individual States from limiting or entirely abandoning the in-state-service basis of jurisdiction").

"[T]he mere longevity of the rule does not by itself provide cause for us to stay our hand if to perpetuate the rule would be to perpetuate inequity. When the rationales which gave meaning and coherence to a judicially created rule are no longer vital, and the rule itself is not consonant with the needs of contemporary society, a court not only has the authority but also the duty to reexamine its precedents rather than to apply by rote an antiquated formula." Lewis v. Lewis, 370 Mass. 619, 628, 351 N.E.2d 526 (1976). Nevertheless, "adhering to precedent is our preferred course" (quotation omitted). Shiel v. Rowell, 480 Mass. 106, 108, 101 N.E.3d 290 (2018), quoting Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808, 827, 111 S.Ct. 2597, 115 L.Ed.2d 720 (1991). A consistent common law creates predictability, Shiel, supra, and predictability is especially important in areas, such as personal jurisdiction, "in which reliance upon existing judicial precedent often influences individual action" (citation omitted). Id. at 109,...