Opinion ID: 2206566
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Fairness and Reasonableness of Exercising Jurisdiction in the District of Columbia

Text: Shoppers had `fair warning' that it could be sued by a District resident who slipped and fell in one of its stores. Burger King, supra, 471 U.S. at 472, 105 S.Ct. 2174; Fisher, supra, 519 A.2d at 163. By engaging in advertising that reached into the District and locating its stores with convenient access to customers from the District, Shoppers reasonably could have anticipated that these customers would shop at its stores and, once there, be subject to the same hazards as other customers, including a slip and fall like the one Ms. Moreno suffered. Shoppers therefore had fair warning that it could be sued in the home jurisdiction of the customers it courted. Under the circumstances, the District would have a `manifest interest' in providing its residents with a convenient forum for redressing injuries inflicted by out-of-[jurisdiction] actors. Burger King, supra, 471 U.S. at 473, 105 S.Ct. 2174. Nothing in the record before us indicates that defense of Ms. Moreno's action in the District constituted an undue burden on Shoppers. Indeed, the voluntary establishment of contacts within the forum [jurisdiction] helps to assure that litigating within that [jurisdiction] would not impose an undue burden on the out-of-state party. Fisher, supra, 519 A.2d at 164. The Metropolitan Washington, D.C. area functions, in many respects, as a unified legal and commercial community. Consequently, when out-of-state actors avail themselves of the benefits of contact within the forum [jurisdiction], as did Shoppers in soliciting customers from the District's population, fairness requires that they be held accountable therein for the consequences of such activities. Id. We are satisfied, then, that the minimum contacts requirement of the due process clause has been met in this case. Shoppers transacted business in the District of Columbia within the meaning of D.C.Code § 13-423(a)(1). [11] Thus, jurisdiction in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia was proper, provided that Ms. Moreno established a nexus between her injury and Shoppers' advertisements in the District sufficient to satisfy § 13-423(b). We turn now to the second due process issue.