Opinion ID: 718605
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Assessing Minimum Contacts

Text: 26 The assessment of minimum contacts is fact-specific and must necessarily be tailored to the circumstances of each case. Met Life identifies roughly five categories of general business contacts between Robertson and Vermont during the period 1987-93 that it contends were sufficiently continuous and systematic to permit a Vermont court to exercise jurisdiction: (1) Sales: nearly $4 million dollars in sales of its wall panel systems and other products between 1989 and 1993 to Vermont addresses and Robertson's filing of Vermont income and sales tax returns during the relevant period; (2) Dealers: Robertson's relationship with five independent Vermont dealers of its Star line of products and its contracts with four Vermont building companies that were authorized builders for its Ceco line of products; (3) Product support: engineering and product data manuals, 800 phone service, training video tapes, computer software, marketing materials, and the right to use company-owned trademarks; (4) Advertising and marketing: national advertising in catalogs and direct mail campaigns that reach Vermont and direct marketing to at least three Vermont architectural firms; and (5) Presence of Robertson employees in Vermont: visits by Robertson's employees and engineers to Vermont on more than 150 occasions between 1987 and 1993, and the fact that a Robertson employee resided and maintained an office in Vermont in 1989-90. 27 Met Life argues that the district court erred in finding that it failed to demonstrate Robertson's continuous and systematic contacts with the state of Vermont. It contends that although certain categories of contacts alleged by Met Life might be insufficient to establish minimum contacts when taken individually, see, e.g., Sandstrom v. ChemLawn Corp., 904 F.2d 83, 89 (1st Cir.1990) (mere license to do business and designation of agent for service of process within the forum state insufficient to confer general jurisdiction; help-wanted advertising--absent any product or service-related advertising--similarly insufficient); Gates Learjet Corp. v. Jensen, 743 F.2d at 1331 (mere solicitation of business through visits, telephone calls, and telexes to the forum state does not support general jurisdiction), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1066, 105 S.Ct. 2143, 85 L.Ed.2d 500 (1985), Robertson's business activities in Vermont, when taken together, are sufficient to establish general jurisdiction. We agree with Met Life that Robertson's various contacts with the forum state should not be examined separately or in isolation. There is no talismanic significance to any one contact or set of contacts that a defendant may have with a forum state; courts should assess the defendant's contacts as a whole. We agree with the Fifth Circuit that[d]etermining the existence of personal jurisdiction does not ... involve an examination of each of [the defendant's] contacts with [the forum state] viewed in isolation from one another. Rather we are required to examine [the defendant's] contacts in toto to determine whether they constitute the kind of continuous and systematic contacts required to satisfy due process. 28 Holt Oil & Gas Corp. v. Harvey, 801 F.2d 773, 779 (5th Cir.1986), cert. denied, 481 U.S. 1015, 107 S.Ct. 1892, 95 L.Ed.2d 499 (1987). This approach is more consistent with our view of the minimum contacts analysis as a contextual inquiry. 29 The two leading Supreme Court cases addressing what constitute continuous and systematic business operations provide a useful starting point for our analysis. In Perkins v. Benguet Consolidated Mining Co., 342 U.S. 437, 445-46, 72 S.Ct. 413, 418-19, 96 L.Ed. 485 (1952), the Supreme Court first articulated the idea that a court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a foreign corporation based on general business operations within the forum state. The defendant (a Philippine mining corporation) was found to have met the standard where the general manager and president of the company moved his office to Ohio during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War II, maintained records, held directors' meetings, and generally carried on in Ohio a continuous and systematic supervision of the necessarily limited wartime activities of the company. Id. at 448, 72 S.Ct. at 419. In contrast, in Helicopteros, 466 U.S. at 411-12, 416, 104 S.Ct. at 1870-71, 1873, the Court found that the defendant Colombian corporation's general business contacts with Texas did not meet the minimum contacts standard where the defendant had purchased equipment from a company in the forum state, sent personnel to the forum state for training, and sent an officer of the corporation on a single trip to the forum for contract negotiations, but had never performed operations or solicited business within the state or sold any product that reached the forum state. The Court held that mere purchases--even at regular intervals--and the related brief presence of employees, did not rise to the level of continuous and systematic general business contacts contemplated by the Perkins court. Helicopteros, 466 U.S. at 416-18, 104 S.Ct. at 1873-74. 30 Many cases, including this one, fall between Perkins and Helicopteros. On the one hand, unlike the defendant in Perkins, Robertson certainly did not use Vermont as a central office location for supervisory activities. On the other hand, unlike the defendant in Helicopteros, Robertson solicited business in Vermont and sold its products through Vermont dealers to Vermont customers. In support of its argument that the district court properly found that it lacked continuous and systematic contacts with Vermont, Robertson relies on three different cases--none of them binding on us or particularly persuasive. In the first of these, Bearry v. Beech Aircraft Corp., 818 F.2d 370 (5th Cir.1987), the Fifth Circuit reversed a district court's finding of general jurisdiction in a suit brought in Texas against an airplane manufacturer for a crash occurring in Mississippi, despite the fact that the defendant had $250 million in sales in Texas over a five-year period through seventeen different independent dealers. Robertson likens its contacts to those of the defendant in Bearry, drawing on the court's statement that [the fact] that Beech products flow into Texas does not create a general presence in that state.... [D]istributors selling Beech manufactured products for their own account do not create minimum contacts sufficient to warrant general jurisdiction over Beech. Id. at 376. We find Bearry distinguishable, however, because the court's holding turned on the fact that all sales were carefully structured so that the negotiation, completion, and performance of all contracts occurred in Kansas, rather than Texas. Inasmuch as [e]ach transaction was completed outside of Texas, id., the Court of Appeals concluded that the mere flow of Beech products into the state did not constitute sufficiently substantial business contacts to satisfy the minimum contacts test. See also Dalton v. R & W Marine, Inc., 897 F.2d 1359, 1362 (5th Cir.1990) (A corporation's obvious intent to exercise its due process rights by deliberately executing its contracts outside of the forum state should not be disregarded lightly.) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, there is no suggestion that Robertson's Vermont sales were executed outside the state or that they were deliberately structured to avoid general jurisdiction in Vermont. 31 The other two cases on which Robertson relies are arguably closer to this case. In Glater v. Eli Lilly & Co., 744 F.2d 213, 215, 217 (1st Cir.1984), the First Circuit found a defendant corporation's general business contacts too fragmentary to satisfy the constitutional standard for general jurisdiction where it advertised its pharmaceutical product in trade journals reaching the forum state and employed eight sales representatives to service physicians, pharmacies, and hospitals within the state. Similarly, in Shute v. Carnival Cruise Lines, 897 F.2d at 381, the Ninth Circuit found that the defendant cruise line, whose contacts with the forum state of Washington were limited to advertising in the local media, payment of commissions to travel agents, and sales of cruises to residents of the state, was not subject to the jurisdiction of Washington's courts. See also Congoleum Corp. v. DLW Aktiengesellschaft, 729 F.2d 1240, 1242 (9th Cir.1984) ([N]o court has ever held that the maintenance of even a substantial sales force within the state is a sufficient contact to assert jurisdiction in an unrelated cause of action.). 32 On the other hand, at least one other court of appeals--as well as a district court within our own circuit--has found contacts similar to those found here sufficient to satisfy the minimum contacts test. In Provident National Bank v. California Federal Savings & Loan, 819 F.2d 434, 436 (3d Cir.1987), the Third Circuit found continuous and systematic contacts between California Federal (Cal Fed) and the state of Pennsylvania, where Cal Fed maintained no Pennsylvania office, employees, agents, mailing address, or telephone number and had not applied to do business in Pennsylvania, did no advertising in Pennsylvania, and paid no taxes there. Indeed, the entire basis for the exercise of personal jurisdiction in that case was the fact that (1) a minuscule percentage of Cal Fed's depositors were Pennsylvania residents, contributing an equally small fraction of Cal Fed's total deposits; (2) three Pennsylvania financial institutions serviced $10.2 million dollars worth of loans (loans not made in Pennsylvania) for Cal Fed--that is, the banks collected loan payments owed to Cal Fed in exchange for a fee; and (3) Cal Fed maintained a controlled disbursement account with a Pennsylvania bank under which Cal Fed would wire funds every business day sufficient to cover the total amount of checks cleared through the bank that day. Id. Because the handling of deposits and servicing of loans--however small the proportion of activities conducted on behalf of Pennsylvania customers might have been--were central to Cal Fed's activities and because Cal Fed's maintenance of the controlled disbursement account required Cal Fed to conduct substantial, ongoing, and systematic activity in Pennsylvania, id. at 438, the court found that the minimum contacts component of the due process inquiry was satisfied. Furthermore, in Sollinger v. Nasco International, Inc., 655 F.Supp. 1385 (D.Vt.1987), the court found that a defendant's mail order sales to Vermont residents satisfied the continuous and systematic standard: 33 Through its catalogs, Nasco advertises and otherwise solicits business in Vermont. By mail and telephone Nasco sells its wares directly to Vermont residents. Nasco carries on in Vermont a  'continuous and systematic, but limited, part of its general business....'  Helicopteros Nacionales, 466 U.S. at 415, 104 S.Ct. at 1872, quoting Perkins v. Benguet Consolidated Mining Co., 342 U.S. 437, 438, 72 S.Ct. 413, 414, 96 L.Ed. 485 (1952). Although something less than the contacts described in Helicopteros Nacionales and Perkins may support an assertion of general jurisdiction over a foreign corporation, we find Nasco's contacts with Vermont to be continuous and systematic. 34 Id. at 1389 (internal quotation marks, alterations, and citations omitted). 35 The various approaches described above demonstrate that this is a close case. And while it is clear that Robertson's contacts do not rise to the level of those described in Perkins, we cannot agree with the district court's assessment of Robertson's Vermont contacts as de minimis. While it is true that Robertson owned no property in Vermont, and exercised no control over its independent dealers, the contacts it did have with the state were more than sporadic and occasional. While Robertson's $4 million dollars in sales in Vermont between 1987 and 1993, standing alone, may not have been sufficient, its relationship with dealers selling its products and its so-called authorized builders, the visits to those dealers and builders by Robertson personnel, the advertising and support available to Vermont residents regarding Robertson's products, and the deliberate targeting of Vermont architectural firms as sales prospects, tips the balance in Met Life's favor and leads us to conclude that it satisfied the minimum contacts requirement of the due process test.