Storie v. Beech Aircraft Corp.
| Citation | 417 F. Supp. 141 |
| Decision Date | 10 August 1976 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 76-70387. |
| Parties | Jareta D. STORIE, Administratrix of the Estate of Charles E. Storie, Deceased, Plaintiff, v. BEECH AIRCRAFT CORPORATION, a Delaware Corporation, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan |
Richard M. Goodman, Detroit, Mich., for plaintiff.
Richard Ward, Detroit, Mich., for Beech Aircraft.
James P. Feeney, Detroit, Mich., for Ohio Aviation Co.
Richard A. Ruppert, Rocky River, Ohio, for Ohio Fluid Power.
William P. Cooney, Southfield, Mich., for Teledyne Industries.
This action arises out of an airplane crash that occurred in the State of Ohio. Plaintiff is a Michigan resident and each of the four defendants is a foreign corporation.
Three of the defendants, Beech Aircraft Corporation, The Ohio Aviation Company, and Ohio Fluid Power, Inc., have moved to dismiss on the ground that the Court lacks personal jurisdiction over them. Plaintiff has responded that she believes that there is general personal jurisdiction over defendant Ohio Fluid Power, Inc., and that there is limited personal jurisdiction over defendants Beech Aircraft Corporation and Ohio Aviation Company (and plaintiff also maintains that there would be limited personal jurisdiction over Ohio Fluid Power, Inc., even if there were no general jurisdiction).
Each of the moving defendants has filed an affidavit in support of its motion. The affidavits are made by officers of these companies and contain various averments regarding the business of each defendant. The general position expressed in each affidavit is that the defendants have nothing to do with the State of Michigan. Plaintiff does not actually dispute on these motions the factual accuracy of affidavits filed on behalf of Ohio Aviation and Beech Aircraft.1
In response to the motion of Ohio Fluid Power, plaintiff has submitted a copy of the deposition of Richard Reichelt, president of Ohio Fluid Power, taken in another action from which plaintiff argues that Ohio Fluid Power is subject to the general jurisdiction of courts sitting in the State of Michigan. Mr. Reichelt signed the affidavit that supports defendant Ohio Fluid Power's motion.
The relevant jurisdictional statutes are M.S.A. § 27A.711(3) and 27A.715(2). Section 27A.711 provides, in part:
Section 27A.715 deals with limited personal jurisdiction:
As noted above, plaintiff claims that defendant Ohio Fluid Power is subject to general personal jurisdiction in Michigan, under section 27A.711(3). Plaintiff relies on a certain relationship between Ohio Fluid Power and Kay Pneumatics of Alpena, Michigan. Ohio Fluid Power's business is that of acting as a manufacturer's representative. One of the companies for whose products Ohio Fluid Power solicits orders is Kay Pneumatics. However, according to the deposition of Mr. Reichelt taken in another action, the territory in which Ohio Fluid Power acts as manufacturer's representative is limited to the State of Ohio. Based on the statements of Mr. Reichelt, if the business generated on behalf of Kay Pneumatics by Ohio Fluid Power is regarded as Ohio Fluid Power carrying on business in Michigan, there is no doubt that the volume is sufficient to constitute "continuous and systematic" operation.
The case relied upon by plaintiff to support this claim of general personal jurisdiction is Donley v. Whirlpool Corporation, 234 F.Supp. 869 (E.D.Mich.1964). However, examination of the facts of that case indicates that it provides little, if any, support for plaintiff's position:
There is no factual dispute over the nature of Drake's activities relating to the State of Michigan. Drake owns no property in Michigan, conducts no manufacturing activities in Michigan, and has no agents or employees residing or working in Michigan. Drake does, however, utilize the services of an independent nonexclusive manufacturer's representative located in Detroit to solicit orders in Michigan. . . . Orders solicited . . . are transmitted to Drake in Illinois, where they are subject to acceptance or rejection. Deliveries are made by interstate carrier from stock manufactured and stored outside of Michigan . . ..
The Court concluded that the volume of sales to customers in Michigan ($247,000, which constituted 5.8% of Drake's business) was sufficient to give general personal jurisdiction over Drake.
The present case presents the reverse situation. Here, it is the manufacturer's representative that is being sued outside of the state in which it operates. Plaintiff has cited no cases in which such activities have been found to constitute carrying on a continuous and systematic part of its general business in Michigan, and the Court is unaware of any such cases. Examination of the line of cases that have considered whether a foreign corporation was subject to jurisdiction under section 27A.711(3) reveals that they generally present facts much like Donley — the foreign corporation ships its products into the state. See e. g., Owen v. Illinois Baking Corporation, 235 F.Supp. 257 (W.D.Mich.1964); Raymond E. Danto Associates v. Arthur D. Little, Inc., 316 F.Supp. 1350 (E.D.Mich.1970).
There is one case that suggests that attempts to solicit business in the state when the business is to be carried on in other states (which is arguably what Ohio Fluid Power did here in making its arrangements with Kay Pneumatics) would not be sufficient to give a Michigan court general personal jurisdiction. See, Holt v. Klosters Rederi A/S, 355 F.Supp. 354, 358 n. 5 (W.D. Mich.1973).
For the foregoing reasons, the Court concludes that Ohio Fluid Power does not carry on a continuous and systematic part of its general business within the State of Michigan.
Plaintiff's claim that there is jurisdiction over Beech Aircraft and Ohio Aviation (and her alternative ground for jurisdiction over Ohio Fluid Power) is that the alleged breaches of duty by the defendants constituted "the doing or causing any act to be done, or consequences to occur, in the state resulting in an action for tort." M.S.A. § 27A.715(2). If this were the case, this Court would have limited personal jurisdiction over defendants that would encompass the present claims.
Essentially the plaintiff maintains that the defendant's actions caused consequences to occur in Michigan. The consequences relied upon are those which would normally flow from the fact that decedent and his personal representative (plaintiff) were Michigan residents. In support, plaintiff has submitted an unpublished opinion of a judge of the Wayne County Circuit Court which found jurisdiction in a case similar to the instant one. This Court does not accept this conclusion and is of the opinion that the published decisions both directly and by implication reject plaintiff's position.
The leading Michigan case interpreting the statute is Woods v. Edgewater Amusement Park, 381 Mich. 559, 165 N.W.2d 12 (1969). That case presented facts typical of the cases that are considered in the forefront of the movement to expand the scope of personal jurisdiction. Defendant manufactured a product in Florida, and sold it to a third party in New Jersey, and after a series of transactions, the product was installed in Michigan. Plaintiff was injured by the product in Michigan. While noting that "the question of `minimal contact' depends upon the particular facts in each case," 381 Mich. at 569, 165 N.W.2d at 17, the Court concluded that there was jurisdiction over the Florida defendant. However, in Woods, the place where defendant's allegedly negligent act contacted plaintiff was Michigan. Here plaintiff's decedent was killed in an Ohio airplane crash.
The case which more closely approximates the attenuated contacts claimed in the present action is Khalaf v. Bankers and Shippers Insurance Co., 62 Mich.App. 678, 233 N.W.2d 696 (1975). There a defendant who was a resident of Illinois was alleged to have negligently failed to procure an effective policy of insurance covering an Illinois company that repaired the machine that injured plaintiff in Michigan. Plaintiff argued that the consequences of the insurance agent's negligence occurred in Michigan since the Michigan plaintiff had been unable to satisfy its judgment against the company that repaired the machine. The Court rejected the claim that such a contact was sufficient to confer personal jurisdiction under M.S.A. § 27A.705(2), the section applicable to individuals that is virtually identical to section 27A.715(2).
There are remarkably few cases that have considered facts such as those presented by the instant one, in which the injury that results in an action for tort occurred in a state other than the forum and the defendant had virtually no other contact with the forum state. In...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Theunissen v. Matthews
...Forster Industries, Ltd., 423 F.Supp. 1302 (E.D.Mich.1976); Price v. Shessel, 415 F.Supp. 306 (E.D.Mich.1976); Storie v. Beech Aircraft Corp., 417 F.Supp. 141 (E.D.Mich.1976). These cases reason that the "consequence" is the tort claim itself and it must arise within Michigan as a result of......
-
Witbeck v. Bill Cody's Ranch Inn
...not support jurisdiction. See, e.g., Subacz v. Town Tower Motel Corp., 567 F.Supp. 1308, 1313 (N.D.Ind.1983); Storie v. Beech Aircraft Corp, 417 F.Supp. 141 (E.D.Mich.1976); Afirm, Inc. v. Frazee Paint & Wallcover Co., 624 F.Supp. 973, 976 Likewise, the interstate posting of a brochure in r......
-
Jones v. Williams
...from a tortious incident occurring outside of a state: Price v. Shessel, 415 F.Supp. 306 (E.D.Mich.1976); Storie v. Beech Aircraft Corp., 417 F.Supp. 141 (E.D.Mich.1976); Amburn v. Harold Forster Industries, Ltd, 423 F.Supp. 1302 (E.D.Mich.1976). The Clavenna panel construed this section of......
-
Williams v. Garcia
...second half of M.C.L.A. §§ 600.705(2), .715(2), tortious conduct causing consequences to occur in Michigan. In Storie v. Beech Aircraft Corp., 417 F.Supp. 141 (E.D.Mich.1976), Judge Kennedy was called on to review the nature of conduct causing consequences to occur in The Court concludes th......