Steinberg v. International Criminal Police Organization

• Decision Date: 16 February 1982
• Docket Number: No. 80-1336,80-1336
• Citation: 672 F.2d 927,217 U.S.App. D.C. 365
• Parties: Leon STEINBERG, Appellant, v. INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL POLICE ORGANIZATION, et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 927

672 F.2d 927

217 U.S.App.D.C. 365

Leon STEINBERG, Appellant, v. INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL POLICE ORGANIZATION, et al.

No. 80-1336.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued Sept. 16, 1981.

Decided Oct. 23, 1981.

On Petition for Rehearing Feb. 16, 1982.

On Motion for Rehearing

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (Civil Action No. 77-0038).

Robert A. Seefried, Washington, D. C., with whom Russell F. Canan, Washington, D. C., was on the brief for appellant.

Rebecca L. Ross, Asst. U. S. Atty., Washington, D. C., with whom Charles F. C. Ruff, U. S. Atty., Royce C. Lamberth, and Kenneth M. Raisler, Asst. U. S. Attys., Washington, D. C., were on the brief for amicus curiae, United States of America, urging affirmance.

John A. Terry, and Michael J. Ryan, Asst. U. S. Attys., Washington, D. C., also entered appearances for amicus curiae.

Before ROBINSON, Chief Judge, WRIGHT and GINSBURG, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GINSBURG.

Concurring statement filed by Circuit Judge J. SKELLY WRIGHT.

GINSBURG, Circuit Judge:

This is a defamation action commenced in January 1977 by Leon Steinberg, a United States citizen residing in Florida, against the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) and Interpol's Secretary General. Headquartered outside Paris in Saint Cloud, France, Interpol was organized in 1923 to promote mutual assistance and facilitate communications among criminal police authorities in different countries. ¹ Steinberg alleges that Interpol published a document in the United States and in 125 other countries erroneously describing him as a wanted international criminal.

Invoking diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332, and asserting in personam jurisdiction pursuant to the District of Columbia Long Arm Statute, specifically, D.C.Code § 13-423(a)(1) and (a)(4), Steinberg delivered process in the District of Columbia to United States officials maintaining liaison with Interpol, and in France, to Interpol's Secretary General at his residence. Interpol and its Secretary General did not acknowledge service and have not appeared in the action. However, on the suggestion of the United States, appearing as amicus curiae, the district court, in February 1980, dismissed the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction over the defendants.

The district court expressed sympathy with Steinberg's jurisdictional arguments observing:

Interpol appears to occupy a rather ambiguous and shadowy existence in this country. It claims not to exist in the United States, yet it disseminates information here, maintains close liaison with United States law enforcement authorities, is in effect represented in court by the U.S. Department of Justice and, if the complaint is to be believed-as it must be for present purposes-defames American citizens in the United States as well as elsewhere.

Appendix (A.) at 297. Nonetheless, the district court read our decision in Sami v. United States, 617 F.2d 755, 758-60 (D.C.Cir.1979), as according Interpol blanket immunity "from the reach of American tribunals." It therefore remitted Steinberg "to whatever relief he may be able to secure from (the Court of Appeals) or from the Congress." A. 297.

We reverse the judgment dismissing the complaint and direct reinstatement of the action. In extending the Sami ruling as to Interpol beyond the bounds of that controversy, ² the district court, tracking the position urged by the United States as amicus curiae, obscured a distinction important to analysis of issues concerning jurisdiction over persons in modern American law. The district court did not differentiate sharply between (1) general, "all purpose" adjudicatory authority to entertain a suit against a defendant without regard to the claim's relationship vel non to the defendant's forum-linked activity, and (2) specific jurisdiction to entertain controversies based on acts of a defendant that touch and concern the forum. See generally von Mehren & Trautman, Jurisdiction to Adjudicate: A Suggested Analysis, 79 Harv.L.Rev. 1121 (1966); cf. Donahue v. Far Eastern Air Transport Corp., 652 F.2d 1032, 1034, 1036-37 (D.C.Cir.1981).

Sami, to the extent the complaint cited Interpol as a defendant, involved an attempt to invoke general, "all purpose" jurisdiction. Plaintiff in that imbroglio stemming from a marital breakdown was a citizen of Afghanistan employed at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D. C. He left the country with his two children in violation of a Florida court order, and was arrested by German authorities in Frankfurt. His presentations in the litigation identified no communication, here or abroad, during the episode about which he complained that emanated from Interpol itself. The plaintiff in Sami alleged that Interpol was "doing business" in the District of Columbia. ³ "Doing business," traditionally, ranked as a basis for general adjudicatory authority. A defendant who "did business" in the forum could be sued on claims that arose elsewhere, claims that had slim or even no ties to the forum. See 4 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure §§ 1067-69, 1073 (1969) (discussing cases applying the "doing business" test since International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945)).

This case, by contrast, involves an invocation of specific, not general, adjudicatory authority, a category encompassing claims arising from forum-linked acts or consequences. Steinberg asserts that Interpol itself initiated a publication that defamed him, and transmitted the offending publication to its liaison in the District of Columbia, as well as to others in Interpol's network here and abroad. Interpol's publication, which it disseminated in the District, Steinberg alleges, gave rise in substantial part to the claim in suit. For the reasons developed below, we conclude that, on the record as it now stands, Washington, D. C., is a fair and reasonable place, within due process constraints, ⁴ for the action Steinberg has commenced and that Interpol was appropriately brought to court under the District of Columbia Long Arm Statute.

I. THE EPISODE IN SUIT

Steinberg's complaint identifies an Interpol document, titled "Blue International Notification 500/59-A3674," describing him as a wanted international criminal who used the alias "Mark Moscowitz." Interpol widely communicated the Notification, Steinberg alleges, to its liaisons, among them, the United States National Central Bureau (USNCB), now located in the Department of Justice, this country's liaison with Interpol. ⁵ In the summer of 1975, on learning of the document and Interpol's transmission of it to liaisons, Steinberg asserts, he notified Interpol and twice offered proof that the Notification was erroneous. Despite the proof he offered, Steinberg further states, Interpol continued to publish the Notification and other statements associating Steinberg with "Mark Moscowitz." It did so, according to Steinberg, until late July 1976, when Interpol finally conceded Leon Steinberg was not "Mark Moscowitz." Steinberg seeks general and punitive damages for the substantial injury he alleges he has suffered as a result of the Blue International Notification.

We emphasize the evident difference between Steinberg's complaint against Interpol and the Interpol forum connections indicated in Sami v. United States, supra. While Steinberg complains solely of communications sent here and to other countries

by Interpol itself, in Sami the demonstrated ties between the forum and Interpol were "remote from the wrongs alleged." The record in Sami did not establish that communications "received in this forum from abroad" relating to the events in suit "were initiated by Interpol"; from all that appeared in Sami, the messages sent here from abroad were dispatched by officers acting "strictly ... as agents of their own states' governments." 617 F.2d at 760.

II. AUTHORITY TO SUMMON INTERPOL TO RESPOND IN THIS FORUM

At the outset, we stress a key feature of this case. The issue posed for decision is not whether the district court here is more or less appropriate than some other forum in the United States for adjudication of the claim in suit. Cf. World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286, 100 S.Ct. 559, 62 L.Ed.2d 490 (1980) (suit against local dealer, although it could not proceed in Oklahoma, could be maintained in New York). The alleged offending Interpol Notification was transmitted to Interpol's liaison, USNCB, in Washington, D. C., and no forum in this country is suggested to be more suitable than the District of Columbia for consideration of the case. Our task, therefore, is to determine whether Leon Steinberg, a citizen and domiciliary of the United States, may call Interpol to account at all in the United States for a publication Interpol sent here and abroad that Steinberg claims is a libel, causing him shame, humiliation, and mental suffering.

Steinberg has invoked federal court subject matter competence on the basis of the parties' diversity of citizenship. 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a)(2). He asserts no claim arising under federal law. ⁶ Personal jurisdiction over the defendants, therefore, initially turns on local (state) law, in this case, District of Columbia law. See Arrowsmith v. United Press International, 320 F.2d 219 (2d Cir. 1963) (en banc); Ramamurti v. Rolls-Royce Ltd., 454 F.Supp. 407 (D.D.C.1978), aff'd mem., 612 F.2d 587 (D.C.Cir.1980); 4 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1075, at 309-10 & n.50 (1969). Application of that law, however, is subject to a federal check. In United States jurisprudence, the outer boundaries of a court's authority to proceed against a particular person or entity is set by a due process measure, imposed on action at the national level by the Fifth Amendment, and on state action by the Fourteenth Amendment. See Donahue v....