Opinion ID: 449464
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Soliciting Business

Text: 11 The district court held that Massachusetts courts had defined solicitation for the purposes of chapter 223, section 38, too narrowly to permit it to exercise jurisdiction over Zimmer on that ground. In so holding, the district court relied on our analysis of Massachusetts precedent in Caso v. Lafayette Radio Electronics Corp., 370 F.2d 707 (1st Cir.1966), in which we concluded, 12 From these cases we derive two propositions about the Supreme Judicial Court's treatment of jurisdiction over foreign corporations: (a) despite the language of Mass.G.L. c. 223, Sec. 38, and despite the court's intimations to the contrary, it has never extended jurisdiction over a corporation whose activities in the state amounted to no more than the constitutionally permissible minimum contact--it has regularly found more than mere solicitation; (b) even when it has found solicitation plus some other activity, it has not extended jurisdiction when the cause of action did not arise out of the activities in Massachusetts. On the other hand, where the corporation's activities more closely approximated the regular conduct of a domestic corporation--that is to say, where the defendant was clearly doing business in Massachusetts--the court has allowed jurisdiction for a transitory cause of action. 13 We are satisfied that, generally speaking, the Massachusetts courts would assert jurisdiction over a foreign corporation served under section 38: (a) whenever the corporation's activities affect the commerce of Massachusetts substantially so that the state has an interest in regulating the general conduct of those activities (doing business), or (b) whenever the corporation's activities in Massachusetts have so affected the particular transaction at issue that it is appropriate to hear the claim in a Massachusetts court. We are not satisfied that jurisdiction would obtain in the absence of both these conditions. 14 Id. at 711-12 (citations omitted). 15 Howse contends that Massachusetts courts no longer construe the soliciting business language so conservatively--specifically, that they permit a corporation that merely solicits business in Massachusetts to be sued in Massachusetts for a tort not arising out of that corporation's Massachusetts activities. We disagree. 16 Howse purports to rely on two cases, Walsh v. National Seating Co., 411 F.Supp. 564 (D.Mass.1976), and Campbell v. Frontier Fishing & Hunting, Ltd., 10 Mass.App. 53, 405 N.E.2d 989 (1980), in questioning the continued vitality of Caso. Neither provides support for such a conclusion. Walsh is not a Massachusetts state case, and the district court there expressly declined to reach the issue of whether mere solicitation sufficed to support the exercise of personal jurisdiction over the defendant Motor Coach Industries, Inc. The court in Walsh noted in passing that the fear underlying the Massachusetts cases on which Caso rests--that the exercise of jurisdiction over corporations that merely solicit business in Massachusetts would violate the due process clause--proved to be unfounded after International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945), and its progeny. This observation, however, is hardly a new one. Caso itself discusses several Massachusetts cases decided after International Shoe, such as Wyshak v. Anaconda Copper Mining Co., 328 Mass. 219, 103 N.E.2d 230 (1952), and Jet Manufacturing Co. v. Sanford Ink Co., 330 Mass. 173, 112 N.E.2d 252 (1953), which reflect doubts concerning the constitutional basis of the original decision restricting section 38 jurisdiction, Thurman v. Chicago, Minneapolis & St. Paul Railway, 254 Mass. 569, 151 N.E. 63 (1926). None of these cases, however, upheld the exercise of jurisdiction over a corporation that merely solicited business in Massachusetts. Walsh simply repeats the doubts already expressed in Caso about the present interpretation the Massachusetts courts would give section 38 without adducing any new precedent or argument to indicate that the Caso court's reading of Massachusetts precedent was unsound. 17 Campbell, likewise, does not support Howse's contention. In Campbell, the defendant was an organizer of fishing expeditions; plaintiff's decedent was injured as a result of the alleged negligence of the defendant during one such trip. One of the defendant's directors resided in Massachusetts and solicited business for the defendant in Massachusetts by distributing and displaying defendant's brochures, by allowing defendant to use the telephone number of a company of which he was the majority owner, and by receiving calls for defendant at that number. Plaintiff's decedent indirectly learned of the trip on which he was injured through the efforts at solicitation by defendant's director. 18 Howse interprets Campbell to have implicitly rejected Caso by construing section 38 as an exercise of jurisdiction to the limits allowed by the due process clause; however, we do not so read it. The court in Campbell adopted the two-pronged approach to jurisdiction that Good Hope Industries v. Ryder Scott Co., 378 Mass. 1, 389 N.E.2d 76 (1979), had already established for analyzing jurisdiction under Mass.Gen.Laws c. 223A, Sec. 3, the Massachusetts long arm statute, namely, whether jurisdiction was (1) authorized by statute, and (2) consistent with due process. While Campbell is somewhat difficult to interpret, we read the court's opinion as concluding that each prong of the test had been met, not that section 38 should be construed to function as an assertion of jurisdiction to the limits allowed by the Constitution, as Massachusetts courts have held for chapter 223A, section 3. See Automatic Sprinkler Corp. v. Seneca Foods Corp., 361 Mass. 441, 280 N.E.2d 423 (1972). 19 In brief, we have found no Massachusetts case decided in the 19 years since Caso to indicate that mere solicitation would be a sufficient basis for section 38 jurisdiction. To be sure, much water has otherwise gone over the dam since then, but in diversity cases the federal courts do not undertake to restructure state law.