Source: https://casetext.com/case/us-v-ferrara-7
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U.S. v. Ferrara, 54 F.3d 825 | Casetext
U.S. v. Ferrara
54 F.3d 825 (D.C. Cir. 1995)
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U.S.v.Ferrara
United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia CircuitMay 19, 1995
Western v. Holder
Specific jurisdiction requires a two-step inquiry: “first, jurisdiction over the defendant must be authorized…
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Argued December 8, 1994.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (92cv02869).
Acting in her official capacity as the Chief Counsel of the Disciplinary Board of the New Mexico Supreme Court, appellee Virginia Ferrara charged "John Doe," an attorney licensed to practice law by the New Mexico's Rules of Professional Conduct based on his activities while employed as an Assistant United States Attorney in Washington, D.C. In this action, the United States seeks both an injunction preventing Ms. Ferrara from taking further action against Mr. Doe and a declaratory judgment that the Constitution's Supremacy Clause prohibits her from taking any adverse action against attorneys employed by the United States Department of Justice based on the performance of their federal duties. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson dismissed the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction over Ms. Ferrara. We affirm.
Congress requires that Assistant United States Attorneys, as well as other attorneys employed by the Department of Justice, be licensed to practice law by a State, territory, or the District of Columbia, but not necessarily by the jurisdictions in which they practice. Department of Justice Appropriation Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 1980, Pub.L. No. 96-132, § 3(a), 93 Stat. 1040, 1044 (1979); Department of Justice Appropriation Act of 1988, Pub.L. No. 100-202, § 204(a), 101 Stat. 1329-8, 1329-15 (1987); 28 U.S.C. § 517 (1988). During the relevant period, Mr. Doe was licensed to practice law by New Mexico but not by the District of Columbia. The D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility determined that, although Mr. Doe practiced in the D.C. court system, it lacked jurisdiction to discipline him. As a consequence, it referred the matter to Ms. Ferrara in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in her capacity as Chief Disciplinary Counsel of the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of New Mexico ("Disciplinary Board"), which was responsible for overseeing the New Mexico Bar.
N.M. Rules Prof. Conduct § 16-402 (1986). In addition, the Rules specifically provide that
Id. § 16-805 (1986).
Mr. Doe, who was represented by the United States, removed the proceeding to the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1442, which permits a federal officer to remove a civil suit or criminal prosecution brought against him in a state court for actions taken under color of his office to the federal court in the district in which the state action is pending. 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1) (1988). The New Mexico Disciplinary Board moved for a remand to the state forum. In re Doe, 801 F.Supp. 478, 481 (D.N.M. 1992). Finding that it lacked jurisdiction under section 1442, the district court granted the motion. Id.
Ms. Ferrara moved to dismiss, arguing that the district court lacked personal jurisdiction over her, that the venue was improper, that the Government was collaterally estopped from making its Supremacy Clause argument as a result of the New Mexico district court decision, and that the court should abstain pending the outcome of the New Mexico disciplinary proceedings against Mr. Doe. United States v. Ferrara, 847 F.Supp. 964, 966 (D.D.C. 1993). Although Judge Johnson determined that Ms. Ferrara's venue, collateral estoppel, and abstention arguments were meritless, she granted the motion to dismiss for want of personal jurisdiction. Id. at 967-68 n. 3.
A personal jurisdiction analysis requires that a court determine whether jurisdiction over a party is proper under the applicable local long-arm statute and whether it accords with the demands of due process. See, e.g., Founding Church of Scientology of Washington, D.C. v. Verlag, 536 F.2d 429, 432 (D.C. Cir. 1976). As there is no applicable federal long-arm statute, jurisdiction over Ms. Ferrara must be determined by reference to District of Columbia law. Edmond v. United States Postal Service General Counsel, 949 F.2d 415, 424 (D.C. Cir. 1991). The District of Columbia Code provides, in relevant part, that
(1) transacting any business in the District of Columbia. . . .
D.C. Code Ann. § 13-423 (1981).
With limited exceptions, the Code's "transacting any business" clause has been interpreted to provide jurisdiction to the full extent allowed by the Due Process Clause. Hummel v. Koehler, 458 A.2d 1187, 1190 (D.C.App. 1983); see also Reuber v. United States, 750 F.2d 1039, 1050 n. 13 (D.C. Cir. 1984). Consequently, the statutory and constitutional jurisdictional questions, which are usually distinct, merge into a single inquiry here.
It should be noted that the Court based its findings of jurisdiction in Burger King and Travelers Health on qualitatively significant contacts with the forum State. In the first case, it observed that the appellee, a Michigan resident who had entered into a franchise agreement by mail with Burger King's Florida headquarters, had accepted "the long-term and exacting regulations of his business from Burger King's Miami headquarters" and that his breach of his contractual obligations to make payments in Miami "caused foreseeable injuries to the corporation in Florida." Burger King, 471 U.S. at 480, 105 S.Ct. at 2186. In the latter case, the Court noted that Travelers Health had created continuing obligations with respect to Virginia residents and had availed itself of the Virginia courts to seek their enforcement. Travelers Health, 339 U.S. at 648, 70 S.Ct. at 930.
Finally, the Government contends that Ms. Ferrara established the requisite minimum personal contact with the District of Columbia when she sent a letter to a District-based Justice Department official stating her refusal to withdraw the disciplinary charges. The Government fails to mention, however, that the letter was in reply to a Justice Department request that the charges be dropped. It is clear that this single, responsive mailing cannot constitute the "meaningful" contact, Burger King, 471 U.S. at 472, 105 S.Ct. at 2182, or "substantial connection" between the defendant and the forum state, McGee v. Int'l Life Ins. Co., 355 U.S. 220, 223, 78 S.Ct. 199, 201, 2 L.Ed.2d 223 (1957), that is required for jurisdiction. Even if this communication were sufficient to satisfy due process, it would nonetheless fail to meet the requirements of the D.C. long-arm statute. The scope of its otherwise broad "transacting any business" clause is limited by the rule that contact with a federal instrumentality located in the District will not give rise to personal jurisdiction. Environmental Research Int'l, Inc. v. Lockwood Greene Eng'rs, Inc., 355 A.2d 808, 813 (D.C.App. 1976) ( en banc). As the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has noted,
We need not determine whether a State official sued in his official capacity should be treated as if he were the State for jurisdictional purposes because the United States could not have established jurisdiction over the State of New Mexico in the District of Columbia regardless of whether due process considerations are relevant to the inquiry. The District's long-arm statute provides for jurisdiction over a non-resident "person" who transacts business there. D.C. Code Ann. § 13-423(a)(1). Therefore, in order to establish jurisdiction over New Mexico under the Government's alternative theory, the State must qualify as a person within the meaning of the statute despite the Government's contention that is not a person under the Due Process Clause.
The Supreme Court has counseled that, "in common usage, the term `person' does not include the sovereign, and statutes employing the word are ordinarily construed to exclude it." Will v. Michigan Dep't of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 64, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 2308, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1989) (finding that State not a "person" for purposes of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 because application to States not "clearly indicated") (internal brackets omitted). The D.C. long-arm statute defines "person" to include
an individual, his executor, administrator, or other personal representative, or a corporation, partnership, association, or any other legal or commercial entity, whether or not a citizen or domiciliary of the District of Columbia and whether or not organized under the laws of the District of Columbia.
D.C. Code Ann. § 13-421 (1981). Although a State could plausibly fall within the term "legal or commercial entity," such a reading would be awkward and, at best, is not "clearly indicated." Furthermore, because a State could not under any circumstances be domiciled in the District or organized under its laws, the statute's text affirmatively implies that a State is not a "person" for its purpose.
[48] SILBERMAN, Circuit Judge, concurring:
It certainly seems anomalous to conclude that in a lawsuit of this nature — brought against a state official at the seat of government by the United States in vindication of its constitutional prerogatives — the district court is incapable of exercising "personal" jurisdiction over the defendant. Perhaps hoping to capitalize on this perception, the government, in its presentations to us, has attempted to frame its dispute as effectively one with New Mexico itself, or at least its Supreme Court. But as the majority properly points out, the only named defendant in the complaint is Ferrara. And although she is named in her official capacity as the New Mexico Supreme court's chief disciplinary counsel, the government must nevertheless establish the district court's jurisdiction over her person. Echevarria-Gonzalez v. Gonzalez-Chapel, 849 F.2d 24, 29 (1st Cir. 1988); see also Edmond v. U.S. Postal Serv. Gen. Counsel, 949 F.2d 415, 424-25 (D.C. Cir. 1991). For this reason, I concur in the court's determination that the district court lacks personal jurisdiction over the defendant — even though she is being sued not as a person, but as an instrumentality of state government, and even though it is the United States that has brought the suit.
This outcome might well be attributed to the inadequacy of the personal jurisdiction doctrine to account for the circumstances of this case. That doctrine, at least as it has developed to this point, does not allow for consideration of the one aspect of this case which might be though particularly significant — that this case presents a legal dispute between governments within the federal system. The very notion of personal jurisdiction strikes me as inapplicable to this sort of case, especially in light of the Supreme Court's determination that a state is not a "person" within the meaning of the Due Process Clause, South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 323-24, 86 S.Ct. 803, 816, 15 L.Ed.2d 769 (1966), a proposition that compels the conclusion that there is no constitutional requirement of personal jurisdiction over a state defendant. Cf. Insurance Corp. of Ireland v. Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee 456 U.S. 694, 702, 102 S.Ct. 2099, 2104, 72 L.Ed.2d 492 (1982) ("The requirement that a court have personal jurisdiction flows not from Art. III, but from the Due Process Clause. . . . It represents a restriction on judicial power not as a matter of sovereignty, but as a matter of individual liberty."). Still, I think we have no choice but to follow the doctrine as laid down, even though it has been formulated with an eye to disputes between private parties. It admits of no grounds for distinguishing this suit on the basis urged by the United States, i.e., the governmental nature of the parties and their relationship as sovereign participants in the federal system.
We have been provided, in this regard, with no principled grounds for distinguishing this case from a suit by Doe himself, or by any private party seeking to enjoin a state official from revoking any sort of state authorization (such as a driver's license) based on events within the forum state and having consequences there. The government does not contend that personal jurisdiction could be asserted under those hypothetical facts. Instead, it emphasizes that, in this case, it is the United States that has brought suit. But the government does not explain why this makes a difference. The government does not claim, for instance, that the United States is free to sue any state in any federal district. Nor does it offer any legal grounds for approaching the question of personal jurisdiction differently when suit is brought by the United States in the District of Columbia district court. The government, in other words, urges us to adopt a holding limited to the specific facts of this case — "a restricted railroad ticket, good for this day and train only." Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649, 669, 64 S.Ct. 757, 768, 88 L.Ed. 987 (1944) (Roberts, J., dissenting). But it is not doctrinally sound to look to the plaintiff in determining whether jurisdiction is appropriate against the defendant. The intuitive reasonableness of allowing the federal government to sue a state in the District of Columbia — which, of course, the United States can do when it brings suit within the original jurisdiction of the Supreme court — is not by itself enough, and I am unable to envision a rule of decision based on considerations acknowledged in the precedents that control.
There is one point, however, on which I do not agree with the majority. I do not read the D.C. long-arm statute to bar service of summons upon a state. Section 13-421 of the D.C. Code provides for asserting personal jurisdiction over "any . . . commercial or legal entity." This language, I think, can only be read to include states within its ambit. Granted, the definition does not actually include the word "state," but a state is certainly a "legal entity." I think the court overreads Will v. Michigan Dep't of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 64, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 2308, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1989), in which the court determined that the word "person" as used in 42 U.S.C. § 1983 did not include a state. The rule of interpretation therein adopted principally reflected the Will Court's concern about readily attributing to Congress an intention to impose monetary liability on the states. Here, by contrast, we have a purely procedural statute. Any constitutional concerns, if present at all, are certainly far less weighty. More important, I think it is incorrect to read Will to require courts to engage in linguistic contortions to avoid finding statutory coverage of states. And it is only through such contortions that one can construe the phrase "any . . . legal entity" not to include a state.
My disagreement with the majority over the interpretation of D.C. Code § 13-421 is inconsequential, however, since as I have already indicated I believe that the law requires that personal jurisdiction be established against Ferrara as the named defendant. And I agree with the majority that Ferrara's contacts with the District of Columbia have not been sufficient to justify the exertion of extraterritorial jurisdiction over her person.