Tavoularis v. Womer

• Decision Date: 15 June 1983
• Docket Number: No. 82-436,82-436
• Citation: 462 A.2d 110,123 N.H. 423
• Parties: Tzannetos TAVOULARIS v. Mark WOMER.
• Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court

Page 110

462 A.2d 110

123 N.H. 423

Tzannetos TAVOULARIS v. Mark WOMER.

No. 82-436.

Supreme Court of New Hampshire.

June 15, 1983.

Craig, Wenners, Craig & McDowell, Manchester (Thomas E. Craig, Manchester, on brief and orally), for plaintiff.

Wiggin & Nourie, Manchester (Karen L. Heller, Manchester, on brief and orally), for defendant.

KING, Chief Justice.

This is an interlocutory appeal from a Superior Court (Wyman, J.) order holding that New Hampshire courts could exercise personal jurisdiction over the defendant, a nonresident, in this civil action to recover for injuries sustained in an automobile accident in New Hampshire.

On April 10, 1978, the defendant, Mark Womer, and one Brian Perry were members of the United States Navy and were stationed in Newport, Rhode Island. Perry asked the defendant to lend him his automobile so that Perry could visit his family in New Hampshire, and the defendant agreed. At the time, the automobile was registered in the name of the defendant's father. Later that day while operating the borrowed automobile, Perry was involved in an automobile accident in Manchester, New Hampshire. As a result of the accident, the plaintiff, Tzannetos Tavoularis, was injured.

The plaintiff brought this action against the defendant in the New Hampshire superior court, alleging that the defendant acted negligently in lending the automobile to Perry because the defendant knew or should have known that Perry did not have a valid driver's license. The defendant filed a motion to dismiss the action on the ground that New Hampshire courts lacked jurisdiction over him because he had no "minimum contacts" with the State to establish jurisdiction. In support of his motion to dismiss, the defendant submitted an affidavit stating that he lived and worked in Georgia, that he neither owned property nor possessed investments in New Hampshire, that he had no relatives in New Hampshire, and that he had never conducted any type of business in the State. The superior court denied the motion to dismiss, finding that the defendant "authorized the use of the highways of New Hampshire" by Perry, in the course of which use the plaintiff was injured allegedly due to Perry's negligence. The court held that this constituted sufficient minimum contacts to invoke the long-arm statute. See RSA 510:4 (Supp.1979). The defendant then brought this interlocutory appeal. We affirm.

On appeal, the defendant raises two arguments. He argues that the New Hampshire long-arm statute, RSA 510:4 (Supp.1979), does not empower New Hampshire courts to exercise jurisdiction in this case. Additionally, he argues that even if the statute authorized jurisdiction, the exercise of jurisdiction in this instance violates federal due process.

The long-arm statute provides that any person who "in person or through an agent ... commits a tortious act within this state ... submits himself ... to the jurisdiction of the courts of this state as to any cause of action arising from or growing out of the [tortious] act[ ]...." RSA 510:4, I (Supp.1979). The defendant argues that this statute does not grant New Hampshire courts jurisdiction over him because his allegedly "tortious act" was lending Perry the automobile, an act which occurred in Rhode Island. He contends that the fact that the injury complained of occurred within this State is not sufficient for the application of the statute.

A number of courts in States with similar statutory language have held that the use of the term "tortious act" or "tortious conduct" in a long-arm statute does not preclude the exercise of jurisdiction over a nonresident when only the alleged injury occurred within the forum. See Vandermee v. Dist. Ct., 164 Colo. 117, 121-23, 433 P.2d 335, 337-38 (1967); Gray v. Amer. Radiator & Sanitary Corp., 22 Ill.2d 432, 435-36, 176 N.E.2d 761, 762-63 (1961). See also Annot., 24 A.L.R.3d 532, 565-66 (1969). An essential part of the reasoning of these courts has been that their long-arm statutes must be interpreted expansively in order to effectuate the legislative intent of providing a convenient forum so that resident plaintiffs may recover for their injuries from nonresident defendants. Vandermee v. Dist. Ct., 164 Colo. at 121, 433 P.2d at 337; Gray v. Amer. Radiator & Sanitary Corp., 22 Ill.2d at 436, 176 N.E.2d at 763.

This court has never expressly addressed the issue of whether the term "tortious act" precludes New Hampshire courts from subjecting a nonresident to their jurisdiction when only the injury complained of occurred within the State. We have held, however, that the exercise of jurisdiction was proper when much, if not all, of the defendants' acts occurred outside New Hampshire. In Hall v. Koch, 119 N.H. 639, 406 A.2d 962 (1979), a New Hampshire law firm brought an action in this State against an Ohio law firm for intentional interference with a contractual relationship. In that case, the plaintiffs claimed that the defendants, the Ohio firm, interfered with the plaintiffs' contractual relationship with an Ohio resident who was the executor of a New Hampshire decedent's estate.

Noting that the long-arm statute must be construed in the broadest legal sense, we held that the activity of the nonresident defendants in negotiating to represent the executor of the New Hampshire decedent's estate, and the defendant's subsequent employment of a New Hampshire law firm as in-State counsel brought them within the scope of the long-arm statute. Id. at 644, 406 A.2d at 965. In Hall, the negotiations between the Ohio defendants and the Ohio resident/executor presumably occurred in Ohio, and the employment of the New Hampshire law firm may also have occurred outside New Hampshire. Nevertheless, this court found that the conduct of the defendants fell within the ambit of the statute.

Because the long-arm statute must be construed in its broadest legal sense to give effect to the legislative intent, and in light of our decision in Hall, we hold that the fact that only the alleged injury occurred within the State does not preclude New Hampshire courts from subjecting a nonresident to their jurisdiction under the long-arm statute.

Having determined that the defendant's conduct falls within the purview of RSA 510:4, I (Supp.1979), we must now determine whether the exercise of jurisdiction over the defendant comports with constitutional due process. See Hall v. Koch, 119 N.H. at 644, 406 A.2d at 965.

In order to subject a defendant to a personal judgment, the defendant must have certain "minimum contacts" with a State such that the maintenance of a suit does not offend "traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice." Internat. Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 316, 66 S.Ct. 154, 158, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945) (citation omitted). In Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U.S. 235, 78 S.Ct. 1228, 2 L.Ed.2d 1283 (1958), the United States Supreme Court stated that the "minimum contacts" requirement is both a protection against inconvenient or distant litigation and a consequence of territorial limitations on the power of the states. Id. at 251, 78 S.Ct. at 1238; see World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson 444 U.S. 286, 291-92, 100 S.Ct. 559, 564-565, 62 L.Ed.2d 490 (1980).

In determining whether a nonresident defendant has the required "minimum contacts" with a state, we may consider the interests of the forum state and of the plaintiff in...