Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_06-cv-01642/USCOURTS-cand-3_06-cv-01642-2/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 28:1446 Petition for Removal

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

CHRISTINA MATEER,

Plaintiff,

 v.

INTEROCEAN AMERICAN SHIPPING

CORP. and DOES 1–25,

Defendants. /

No. C 06-01642 WHA

ORDER DENYING MOTION TO

DISMISS FOR LACK OF

PERSONAL JURISDICTION

INTRODUCTION

Defendant Interocean American Shipping Corp. moves to dismiss this action for lack of

personal jurisdiction over Interocean. Immediately prior to the instant litigation, defendant

operated three oceangoing ships based in the San Francisco Bay, employed two dozen people

here, leased real estate in Alameda and was registered to do business in California for more than

sixteen years. The assertion of general jurisdiction over defendant is therefore justified. The

motion is DENIED.

STATEMENT

Defendant concedes that this order must take as true all undisputed allegations in the

complaint and resolve all conflicts between the parties’ declarations in plaintiff Christina

Mateer’s favor (Br. 4, citing Amer. Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Compagnie Bruxelles Lambert, 94 F.3d

586, 588 (9th Cir. 1996)). 

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 Interocean Ugland Management Corp. was the same entity as Interocean American Shipping Corp. It

used different names at different times (Rogers Decl. I ¶¶ 2–3). 

2

This action arose out of alleged sexual harassment, retaliation and Jones Act negligence

during plaintiff’s employment as a steward aboard the M/V Patriot Pacific Gulf Marine, a ship

that was operated by IUM, a name under which defendant did business (Compl. 1, ¶ 7). A

ship’s steward is in charge of provisions and dining arrangements. All of the acts that gave rise

to the complaint occurred outside California, during a voyage from Europe to Brunswick,

Georgia, from November or late October 2004 to November 26, 2004 (Rogers Decl. ¶¶ 9–11

(Mar. 6, 2006) (“Rogers Decl. I”)). 

Defendant is incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in New Jersey. It operates

ships under contract with the United States government and shipowners (Rogers Decl. I ¶¶ 2,

5–6). On March 9, 1989, defendant registered to conduct business in California as an out-ofstate corporation. As of September 3, 2004, January 6, 2006, and March 10, 2006, defendant’s

registration status was “active” and it had an agent for service of process in Alameda

(Stephenson Decl. ¶ 5, Exh. D). 

On April 28, 2000, defendant began performance of a contract with the U.S. Maritime

Administration to operate three ships, the Mt. Washington, Cape Mohican and Cape Fear. The

ships were part of the Ready Reserve Fleet, which stood on alert to support any rapid

deployment of U.S. military force (Rogers Decl. I ¶14). Defendant thus became the employer

of the ships’ crews, although the location of the ships was controlled by the Maritime

Administration (id. ¶ 15; Stephenson Decl., Exh. B (Jt. Statement of Stipulated Facts re Def.’s

Mot. for Summ. J. ¶ 1, Dixon v. Interocean Ugland Management Corp., No. CGC 04 432882

(Cal. Super. Ct. Mar. 14, 2006).1

 

Defendant operated the Cape Fear and Cape Mohican out of a home port in Alameda,

California, for the entire period of the contract, April 28, 2000, to July 28, 2005. In January

2002, the Maritime Administration ordered the Mt. Washington from Texas to San Francisco. 

It was here until the end of the contract, except for about five to six weeks in Oregon in late

2002 and about two months off the coast of South America in the first half of 2004 (Rogers

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2

 In an attempt to minimize its contacts with Northern California, defendant states that two of the three

ships went to sea during the contract period (Br. 10). There is only evidence that one ship went to sea during

that period. Defendant offers no evidence to support the contention that a second ship also left port. For

purposes of this motion, therefore, the Court bases its analysis on just one ship going to sea. 

3

Decl. I ¶ 16; Rogers Decl. ¶¶ 14, 16 (Mar. 30, 2006) (“Rogers Decl. II”); Stephenson Decl. ¶ 3,

Exh. B ¶ 3).2

 

While the ships were stationed in California, defendant employed their approximately

23 crewmembers, plus two to three port engineers (one per ship). One, and later two, of the

engineers worked out of shoreside space in Alameda that was leased by defendant. The other

engineer worked out of a shared trailer on Pier 50 in San Francisco. Defendant deducted

California payroll taxes from the wages of the engineers and carried California workers

compensation insurance for them. No taxes were deducted from the wages of the

crewmembers, nor was workers compensation insurance carried for them. In 2004, defendant

reported that it earned about six percent of its revenue in California (Rogers Decl. I ¶¶ 17, 19;

Rogers Decl. II ¶¶ 7, 17; Stephenson Decl. ¶ 3, Exh. B, ¶¶ 1, 8). 

Defendant had no connections to California other than those described above during the

time period in which plaintiff’s claims arose and in the decade immediately preceding it.

Plaintiff filed a complaint against defendant in Alameda County Superior Court on

January 18, 2006. Although she did not cite to specific statutes, the complaint clearly states two

claims for employment discrimination, one under 42 U.S.C. 2000e-2(a) (sexual harassment) and

another under 42 U.S.C. 2000e-3(a) (retaliation). A third claim was for maritime negligence

pursuant to 46 App. U.S.C. 688 (Compl. 1, ¶¶ 11–22). A state-court summons and the

complaint were served upon defendant January 31. On March 1, defendant removed the case to

district court, asserting that the court had diversity and federal-question subject-matter

jurisdiction (Notice of Removal of Action 1, ¶¶ 2–4; Summons). 

ANALYSIS

A court may not adjudicate claims against a party unless it has personal jurisdiction over

the party. A plaintiff typically consents to a court’s jurisdiction by filing suit with it. A

defendant, however, may contend that it is not subject to the plaintiff’s chosen forum. A

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 There is also a subcategory of federal-question cases, concerning foreign entities with such weak

connections to each individual state that they would not be subject to jurisdiction in any one of them. Personal

jurisdiction in such actions is analyzed under the Fifth Amendment, as in federal-question cases involving only

U.S. defendants. The statutory analysis, however, is different in these foreign-entity cases. Normally, the

summons and complaint are served on the authority of state statutes. E.g., Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 410.10. Such

state statutes have no power over someone without sufficient connections to the individual states. See, e.g.,

World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286, 295 (1980). Instead, service is accomplished

through Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(k)(2), which allows service on anyone who is not subject to the

jurisdiction of any state. Cases in which service is affected pursuant to this rule are thus analyzed under a

different statutory framework than the instant motion. They share, however, a common constitutional rule: the

Fifth Amendment. 

4

defendant may move pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2) to dismiss a

complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction over it. Upon such motion, the plaintiff can only

prevail by making out a prima facie showing of facts sufficient to establish jurisdiction. Even if

the plaintiff prevails at this stage, however, she must prove the jurisdictional facts by a

preponderance of the evidence at trial. Data Disc, Inc. v. Sys. Tech. Assocs., Inc., 557 F.2d

1280, 1285 (9th Cir. 1977). 

The typical personal-jurisdiction analysis begins by asking whether there is a rule or

statute that potentially confers jurisdiction over defendant. Go-Video, Inc. v. Akai Elec. Co.,

Ltd., 885 F.2d 1406, 1413 (9th Cir. 1989). If so, the inquiry moves to whether asserting

jurisdiction will offend due process. In that regard, the court must decide whether to analyze

the case under the Fifth Amendment or under the Fourteenth Amendment. In diversityjurisdiction cases, the court applies the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,

which constrains the exercise of power by the various states. Int'l Shoe Co. v. Wash., Office of

Unemployment Comp. & Placement, 326 U.S. 310, 311. In a federal-question case in federal

court, the Fourteenth Amendment is not implicated because the power of the states is not at

issue. Instead, the court applies the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which

constrains federal — but not state — power. Go-Video, Inc., 885 F.2d at 1413.3

In most cases, a Fifth Amendment analysis of personal jurisdiction is almost identical to

a Fourteenth Amendment inquiry. Both protect individual liberty against government

overreaching. There is, however, one crucial difference. The Fourteenth Amendment analysis

is designed to balance the interests of the states by ensuring that they “do not reach out beyond

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the limits imposed on them by their status as coequal sovereigns in a federal system.” 

Fourteenth Amendment inquiry therefore requires analysis of the “forum State’s interest in

adjudicating the dispute,” “the interstate judicial system’s interest in obtaining the most

efficient resolution of controversies[][,] and the shared interest of the several States in

furthering fundamental substantive social policies.” World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v.

Woodson, 444 U.S. 286, 291–92 (1980). The Fifth Amendment inquiry, by contrast, does not

balance the states’ interests because there are no comparable state interests implicated in

federal-question cases in federal court. Analysis of the factors listed above is therefore

inappropriate in a federal question cases heard in federal court. 

Under the Fifth Amendment, jurisdiction is proper if it is reasonable and the defendant

has sufficient contacts with the territory of the court. When the plaintiff’s claim arose from the

defendant’s activities in or impacts upon the forum, the court must consider the connections

between the defendant, the litigation and the forum. If the court finds that there are sufficient

contacts and that assertion of jurisdiction is reasonable, then it has a type of personal

jurisdiction called “specific jurisdiction.” 

But when the activities giving rise to the claim had no connection to the forum, the court

must consider whether the defendant’s contacts with the forum were pervasive enough, at the

time the suit was commenced, for the court to have “general jurisdiction” over the defendant. 

Farmers Ins. Exch. v. Portage La Prairie Mut. Ins. Co., 907 F.2d 911, 913 (9th Cir. 1990) (only

relevant contacts are those before litigation started). General jurisdiction allows the court to

assert jurisdiction over a defendant to adjudicate any and all claims against it — no matter

where they arose. See Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia, S.A. v. Hall, 466 U.S. 408,

414–15 (1984). Because general jurisdiction is so broad, the defendant’s contacts with the

forum must be more extensive than would be required under a specific-jurisdiction test. The

defendant must have “minimum contacts” with the geographical area over which the court has

jurisdiction “such that the maintenance of the suit does not offend traditional notions of fair

play and substantial justice.” See Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U.S. 457, 463 (1940). The

defendant’s contacts with the area also must be “substantial, continuous, and systematic.” 

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4

 This waiver almost certainly does not affect the result. Service was affected pursuant to California

Civil Procedure Code Section 410.10. That statute allows courts to exert power to the outer limits of that

allowed by the federal and state constitutions. Interocean’s extensive contacts with California, as discussed

below in the main text, likely would make it subject to personal jurisdiction here under the state constitution. 

The federal constitutional limits incorporated within Section 410.10 are co-extensive with those imposed by the

Constitution, which are discussed in the text below. 

6

Glencore Grain Rotterdam B.V. v. Shivnath Rai Harnarain Co., 284 F.3d 1114, 1123 (9th Cir.

2002). In addition, defendant’s contacts with the area cannot be based on the unilateral activity

of another party or of a third person. Helicopteros Nacionales, 466 U.S. at 414–15. Random,

fortuitous and attenuated contacts are not enough. Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S.

462, 475 (1985). 

If the plaintiffs shows that there are sufficient minimum contacts, the defendant may

nevertheless defeat the claim of personal jurisdiction by “presenting a compelling case that

jurisdiction would be unreasonable.” Haisten v. Grass Valley Med. Reimbursement Fund, Ltd.,

784 F.2d 1392, 1397 (9th Cir. 1986). 

For the instant motion, there is no need to inquire whether there is a rule or statute that

potentially confers jurisdiction over defendant. Interocean did not claim in its motion that the

court lacks a statutory basis for asserting jurisdiction. (Nor did it claim that service of process

was deficient or improper.) It claimed only constitutional deficiencies. In its supplemental

brief, however, it discusses statutory issues extensively. The brief arguably raises statutory

objections to the assertion of jurisdiction over Interocean. Such objections may not be raised in

supplemental briefing to which plaintiff has no opportunity to respond. The Court therefore

treats all statutory arguments against the assertion of person jurisdiction as waived, at least for

the purposes of this motion.4

This order holds that the Fifth Amendment applies. Defendant removed the case based

on both diversity of citizenship and federal-question subject-matter jurisdiction. Normally,

when subject-matter jurisdiction is based on diversity of citizenship, the court can maintain

personal jurisdiction over a defendant if it does not offend the Fourteenth Amendment Due

Process Clause. See, e.g., Perkins v. Benguet Consol. Mining Co., 342 U.S. 437, 440 (1952). It

is true that there is complete diversity in the instant case. That is irrelevant to this Court’s

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 There is no evidence of any activity by defendant in California during 2004 outside of the San

Francisco Bay area. 

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subject-matter jurisdiction, however, because none of plaintiff’s claims is founded on state law. 

They are all founded on federal statutes. State power therefore is not at issue and the Fifth, not

the Fourteenth, Amendment controls. Defendant concedes in its supplemental brief that it was

wrong to contend in its original motion and reply that the Fourteenth Amendment governed

personal jurisdiction in this case. It agrees now that the Fifth Amendment governs. 

Having determined that the Fifth Amendment applies, this order now considers the

defendant’s contacts with this area. Plaintiff concedes that her claims arose entirely outside of

California and that therefore this Court has no specific jurisdiction over defendant in this action. 

She contends correctly, however, that defendant had contacts here of a degree and nature

sufficient to give this Court general jurisdiction over Interocean. 

The reasons are manifold. First, the contacts were substantial and continuous. For

sixteen years immediately preceding this litigation, defendant was registered to conduct

business in California and had an agent here for service of process. For five years immediately

preceding this litigation, it operated two ships that — for all the evidence shows — never left

San Francisco Bay. For three-and-a-half years immediately before the complaint was filed,

defendant operated a third ship that was based in San Francisco and which left here for no more

than about three-and-one-half months. These were major, oceangoing vessels. 

In addition, defendant employed and paid the wages of the ships’ approximately twentythree crew members and the two to three engineers. It leased an office for engineers in

Alameda. It made local payroll tax deductions for these three and carried workers

compensation insurance for them. Defendant earned six percent of its 2004 revenue in

California.5

 These contacts were part of a systematic effort of defendant to perform a revenuegenerating contract at the heart of its core business of operating ships. None of these contacts

was random, fortuitous or attenuated. They were certainly not “insubstantial and sporadic,” as

defendant claims (Br. 9). After conducting such extensive business in the area, it is fair and just

to hale defendant into court here. 

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Defendant claims that it did not establish a regular place of business here. That is flatly

contradicted by evidence that it kept three ships moored to the piers, without any evidence that

the crews of two of them ever cast off during the five-year contract period. It is also torpedoed

by the fact that the engineers maintained regular places of business on shore. 

Defendant leans heavily on the argument that it did not establish sufficient contacts

because it had no control over the location of the ships it operated (see, e.g., Br. 10). The

locations were decided by the Maritime Administration, which Interocean had a contractual

obligation to obey. Defendant also claims that it was merely the agent of the Maritime

Administration and, as such, did not purposefully direct its activities here. It argues that its

presence here was the result of “unilateral activity” by the Maritime Administration. Defendant

argues that, because it did not make local contact purposefully and because the contacts were

due to the“unilateral” activity of the Maritime Administration, they were not jurisdictional

contacts at all (Reply 4–5). 

This is unconvincing. Defendant’s long-term operation of its business here was not an

accident. No one forced defendant to enter into a contract with the government. It did so

voluntarily. It must be deemed to have yielded to any jurisdictions in which it has carried out

those operations to any substantial degree. Moreover, the Court takes judicial notice of the

facts that the ports of the San Francisco area collectively had the fifth-highest tonnage and

number of vessel calls among U.S. ports in 2002. See Maritime Administration, Vessel Calls at

U.S. Ports 2003 (July 2004), available at http://www.marad.dot.gov/MARAD_statistics. It

therefore was readily foreseeable at the time defendant executed its contract with the Maritime

Administration that it might be required to operate ships here. 

Defendant claims that this foreseeability was “insufficient under the Due Process

Clause” to bring it under the Court’s jurisdiction. It is true that “foreseeability alone has never

been a sufficient benchmark for personal jurisdiction.” World-Wide Volkswagen, 444 U.S. at

295 (emphasis added). This order does claim that the foreseeability that defendant would

operate ships here is sufficient, by itself, to assert jurisdiction over defendant. But there was

much more here. Defendant was registered to do business here, had two dozen employees here,

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maintained ships here, paid taxes here and leased real-estate here. That was a far cry from the

situation held not to justify the exercise of personal jurisdiction in World-Wide Volkswagen. In

that case, an Oklahoma state court claimed jurisdiction over a corporation merely because the

company had sold cars with the foreseeable consequence that one of them would travel to

Oklahoma. Ibid. As World-Wide Volkswagen itself noted, foreseeability, while not sufficient to

create jurisdiction, is relevant to the inquiry: “This is not to say, of course, that foreseeability is

wholly irrelevant. But the foreseeability that is critical to due process analysis is not the mere

likelihood that a product will find its way into the forum State. Rather, it is that the defendant’s

conduct and connection with the forum State are such that he should reasonably anticipate being

haled into court there.” Id. at 297. In the instant case, defendant’s conduct and connection with

California were such that it can properly be held to account in this Court. 

Defendant claims that, even if its connections to this area count as jurisdictional

contacts, they “were insubstantial given that it had no control” over where the vessels were

stationed (Br. 10). This argument proves too much. If true, it would mean that even a onehundred-year presence of one-hundred ships in San Francisco would not make general

jurisdiction here constitutionally permissible, so long as the vessels were here at the order of a

contractual partner and not by sole decision of defendant. Such an outcome would be absurd

and would allow a defendant like the one here to escape jurisdiction in every port regardless of

voluminous business. Furthermore, even if we decrease the significance of defendant’s contacts

with the Bay Area due to its contract with the Maritime Administration, they still are substantial

enough to justify the exercise of personal jurisdiction over Interocean. 

Defendant also argues that it is not amenable to suit here because it did not purposefully

avail itself of the “privilege of conducting activities within the forum State, thus invoking the

benefits and protections of its laws,” Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U.S. 235, 253 (1958). 

It is questionable whether purposeful invocation of the “benefits and protections” of a

state’s laws is as significant in the context of a federal court’s handling of federal claims as it

was in Hanson, where a Florida state court was adjudicating state-law probate issues. Id. at

238. Hanson was thus adjudicated under the Fourteenth Amendment, whereas the instant case

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must be considered under the Fifth Amendment. In the Fourteenth Amendment context, the

power of the state is at issue. Hanson therefore had to consider the demarcation between the

jurisdictional spheres of sovereign states. It thus made sense to see jurisdiction as one half of a

quid-pro-quo relationship, whereby the acceptance of benefits under the laws of a state

subjected a party to the power of that state’s courts. In the Fifth Amendment context, interstate

power is not at issue. It is nevertheless relevant to a Fifth Amendment analysis whether or not a

defendant availed itself of the benefits of a state’s laws. Such an invocation suggests other

contacts between the defendant and the state. It ultimately makes it more fair and just to hale

the defendant into federal court here. 

Even if we accord the purposeful-availment requirement the full weight it deserves in

diversity and state-law cases, it would not defeat jurisdiction. In the instant case, defendant

actively took advantage of the state’s laws in several ways. It participated in its taxation system

and its workers compensation system. It purposefully benefitted from the state’s work to

maintain navigable harbors and the piers at the Port of San Francisco. It used state roads that

undoubtedly were used by defendant’s contractors and workers to reach the ships. Defendant

could have chosen to breach its contract with the Maritime Administration and forego all these

benefits of California’s laws. It did not. That fact supports the exercise of personal jurisdiction.

The purposeful-availment issue is a corollary of the requirement that the “unilateral

activity of those who claim some relationship with a nonresident defendant cannot satisfy the

requirement of contact with the form State.” Hanson, 257 U.S. at 253. Defendant argues that

haling it before this Court is the equivalent of allowing unilateral activity of the Maritime

Administration to subject it to suit here. Not true. The activity that sent Interocean here was

not unilateral. Defendant and the Maritime Administration were parties to a bilateral contract,

which eventually required defendant to do business here. Furthermore, although the orders may

have originated with the Maritime Administration, they were implemented by defendant. Thus

the activities were not unilateral but rather were joint actions of defendant and the Maritime

Administration. 

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Defendant likens this case to Helicopteros Nacionales. In that decision, however, the

unilateral activity that the Supreme Court said was not enough to support jurisdiction was the

acceptance by Helicopteros Nacionales of checks issued by a co-defendant and drawn on a

Texas bank. Because there was no indication that defendant played any role in deciding on

which bank the check would be drawn, the court held that the choice was a unilateral decision

of the co-defendant. It therefore was not a factor in favor of requiring Helicopteros Nacionales

to defend a suit in Texas state court. 466 U.S. at 416–17. 

The unilateral actions at issue in Helicopteros Nacionales were nothing like the actions

Interocean took at the behest of the Maritime Administration. Defendant was more purposeful

in its contacts than the mere depositing or cashing of checks drawn on a local bank. As stated,

it maintained oceangoing ships, paid workers, registered to do business, filed state tax returns

and leased office space here. Helicopteros Nacionales does not aid defendant. 

Defendant attempts to support the arguments related to its lack of control by citing

several decisions in which courts found that they lacked personal jurisdiction over defendants in

shipping cases due, in part, to the defendants’ lack of control over the ports at which the ships

called. All of these decisions are from other circuits, so none are controlling. They are also

factually distinguishable. 

In several decisions, the defendants had much less substantial contact with the relevant

state than did Interocean with California. Typically, they paid only occasional port calls to the

state, as contrasted with the semi-permanent stationing in the instant case. The decisions

therefore typically found that the contacts were not systematic or continuous. See Asarco, Inc.

v. Glenara, Ltd., 912 F.2d 784, 787 (5th Cir. 1990) (fewer than twenty port calls by ship while

managed by defendant); Conner v. Bouchard Transp. Co., No. CIV. A. 93-450, 1993 WL

388274 at *3 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 30, 1993) (100 port calls by thirty-six ships over five-year period);

Nicolaisen v. Toei Shipping Co., 722 F.Supp. 1162, 1165 (D. N.J. 1989) (seventeen port calls

over five years); Farris v. United States, 877 F.Supp. 1549, 1555 (M.D. Fla. 1994) (“sporadic”

use of Florida ports); Ginsberg v. Livestock Express, Inc., Civ. A. No. 90-1411-N, 1990 WL

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303044 at *5 (E.D. Va. Nov. 9, 1990) (three port calls); Amer. Overseas Marine Corp. v.

Patterson, 632 So.2d 1124, 1130 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1994) (“sporadic” use of Florida ports). 

In other decisions, there was even less direct contact because the ship never arrived at its

intended destination in the forum state. See Francosteel Corp. v. M/V Charm, 19 F.3d 624, 626,

628 (11th Cir. 1994) (ship sank before arriving in Georgia); Uni-Petrol Gesellschaft Fur

Mineraloel Produkte, M.B.H. v. M/T Lotus Maru, 607 F.Supp. 108, 109 (S.D.N.Y. 1985) (ship

never delivered cargo to New York destination). 

In two decisions, the claim of personal jurisdiction was based not on operations in a

forum, as here, but on injection of a defective piece of equipment into a steam of commerce. 

The courts held that, on that theory alone, manufacturer could not be haled into court where the

injury occurred. Fed. Ins. Co. v. Lake Shore Inc., 886 F.2d 654, 658 (4th Cir. 1989); DeJames

v. Magnificence Carriers. Inc., 491 F.Supp. 1276, 1280 (D. N.J. 1980). The stream-ofcommerce contacts in those decisions were much less extensive and purposeful than was

defendant’s conduct in the instant case. 

Contrary to defendant, the final shipping decision cited by it did not hold that the court

lacked personal jurisdiction, despite only occasional calls at American ports. W. Africa Trading

& Shipping Co. v. London Int’l Group, 968 F.Supp. 996, 1101 (D. N.J. 1997). The holding

therefore does not support defendant’s position. 

Defendant also claims that its contacts were not “continuous and systematic” (Br. 10),

committing verbicide on the words “continuous” and “systematic.” A five-year period of doing

business is obviously continuous. So too is a sixteen-year period of registration to do business

in California. Defendant’s contacts were also systematic, in that employed systems to maintain

the ships here, paid the crew here, lease office space here, pay taxes here and earn revenue here. 

These acts were not random or fortuitous. 

Defendant makes several other unavailing arguments: 

• It argues that it “never earned California revenues” (Br. 10). But in 2004, it

reported that it earned about six percent of its revenue in California (Rogers

Decl. II ¶ 7). Defendant thus defeats its own argument. 

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• While it is true, as defendant asserts, that it did not advertise or solicit business

in California, those facts do not eviscerate this Court’s jurisdiction over

defendant, given the otherwise substantial contacts between it and Northern

California. 

• Defendant asserts that it “is not an operation so enmeshed in California’s

business that its contacts here ‘approximate physical presence,’” (Br. 11), a

requirement for assertion of personal jurisdiction. See Bancroft & Masters, Inc.

v. Augusta Nat’l, Inc., 223 F.3d 1082, 1086 (9th Cir. 2000). Indeed, its contacts

did not merely approximate physical presence — Interocean actually was present

in California. 

• Defendant notes its current lack of contacts with California. This is irrelevant. 

The only contacts that matter are those existing at or before the beginning of the

litigation. Farmers Ins. Exch., 907 F.2d at 913. 

• Defendant argues that its contacts are insufficient because it only maintained its

registration as a foreign corporation because it was cheaper to do so than to

terminate it when it left the state, then restart it when it returned. This argument

implicitly concedes that defendant expected (and expects) to do business in

California again. Furthermore, defendant offers no authority for the proposition

that maintaining a registration to do business becomes jurisdictionally irrelevant

when it is done to save money. 

***

Given that plaintiff has created a presumption of reasonableness by carrying her burden,

this order must evaluate whether defendant nevertheless has defeated the claim of personal

jurisdiction by “presenting a compelling case that jurisdiction would be unreasonable.” 

Haisten, 784 F.2d at 1397. 

First, defendant asserts that jurisdiction is unreasonable because, even if its contacts

were purposeful, the “degree of purposefulness . . . is minuscule” (Reply 10). This argument is

unpersuasive for the same reasons that these contacts cannot be disregarded in examining

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 Plaintiff asserted in her complaint that she “was at all times mentioned herein a resident of the State

of California (Compl. ¶ 1). That contention was not controverted by defendant’s submission of a declaration

that the address plaintiff gave on her EEOC Charge of Discrimination and her declaration in support of the

charge is actually the address of a United Parcel Service store (Tamulski Decl. ¶¶ 4–5). Her use of a post-office

box does not suggest that she is not a citizen, resident or domiciliary of California. Many people use post-office

boxes as their mailing addresses despite also having a residence in the same state. Furthermore, this UPS

address was given by plaintiff after the claim arose. Her assertion in the complaint that she was a resident of

California when the allegedly unlawful actions took place is not called into question by whatever address she

claimed several months later. 

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minimum contacts. One of these reasons is that Interocean’s obligation to obey the Maritime

Administration was due only to its voluntary and purposeful execution of a bilateral contract

with the government. 

Second, defendant claims that jurisdiction would not be reasonable because the United

States, not it, is the proper defendant in this action (Reply 11). Whatever the merits of this

argument, it has nothing to do with this Court’s general jurisdiction over defendant. General

jurisdiction concerns a defendant’s contacts with a forum generally, not his amenability to

liability for a particular claim. 

Third, defendant makes the puzzling claim that jurisdiction is unreasonable because

“California should not have an interest in the outcome of this litigation” (Reply 11). A state,

however, has an interest in adjudicating claims raised by its citizens. Defendant conceded that

plaintiff “was and still is a citizen of the State of California, as she alleges in her Complaint”

(Notice of Removal ¶ 5). Defendant thus defeated its own argument. In any case, whatever

merit this argument would have under the Fourteenth Amendment, it has none under the Fifth

Amendment jurisdictional analysis.6

CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated above, defendant’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal

jurisdiction is DENIED. A prima facie showing of personal jurisdiction has been made, subject

to further proof on summary judgment or trial. This decision moots defendant’s request to

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transfer for want of personal jurisdiction, plaintiff’s request for jurisdictional discovery and

plaintiff’s objections to defendant’s reply brief. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: April 17, 2006 WILLIAM ALSUP

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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