Opinion ID: 183943
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: montana statutes and case law govern the question of whether the companies have consented to personal jurisdiction

Text: We review de novo the district court's ruling that it lacked personal jurisdiction over the Companies. Love v. Associated Newspapers, Ltd., 611 F.3d 601, 608 (9th Cir.2010). Our analysis of whether the Companies' appointment of an agent for service of process is a sufficient hook for the exercise of personal jurisdiction begins with a line of venerable Supreme Court cases. The Court first considered the issue in Pennsylvania Fire Insurance Co. of Philadelphia v. Gold Issue Mining & Milling Co., 243 U.S. 93, 37 S.Ct. 344, 61 L.Ed. 610 (1917). In Pennsylvania Fire, the defendant insurer executed a power of attorney that made service on the superintendent of the insurance department of Missouri equivalent to personal service. 243 U.S. at 94, 37 S.Ct. 344. The Supreme Court held that the insurer's appointment of a resident agent for service of process constitutionally subjected the insurer to suit in Missouri for cases growing out of the insurer's activities both in Missouri and elsewhere. See id. at 95, 37 S.Ct. 344. The linchpin that made this holding possible, however, was the Supreme Court of Missouri's interpretation of the governing state statute. The Missouri statute at issue in Pennsylvania Fire requir[ed] all [insurers doing business in Missouri] to appoint the insurance commissioner of [Missouri] as their agent to accept service of process . . . and to acknowledge receipt of the same when `issued by any court of record, justice of the peace or other inferior court, and upon whom such process may be served for and in behalf of such company in all proceedings that may be instituted against such company in any court of this state.' Gold Issue Mining & Milling Co. v. Pa. Fire Ins. Co. of Phila., 267 Mo. 524, 184 S.W. 999, 1004-05 (1916) (quoting Mo.Rev. Stat. § 7042 (1909)). [3] Previous versions of the Missouri statute had limit[ed] the process of the [Missouri] courts . . . to causes of action arising out of contracts . . . made in [Missouri]. Id. at 1005. The Missouri Supreme Court held that, by contrast with those earlier versions, the more expansive language of the current version of § 7042 clearly authorized the superintendent of insurance to acknowledge the receipt and service of process for any such company in any and all transitory causes of action that might be brought by any one against it in the [Missouri] courts. Id. (emphasis added). The state supreme court went on explain at length that, so construed, § 7042 was constitutional. See id. at 1005-21. On appeal, the Supreme Court noted that the insurer had appoint[ed] an agent in language that rationally might be held to subject it to personal jurisdiction for any and all suits, and noted that [t]he language has been held to go to that length by the state supreme court. Pennsylvania Fire, 243 U.S. at 95, 37 S.Ct. 344. The Court then affirmed the constitutionality of the statute as construed by the Missouri Supreme Court, concluding that when an insurer executes a document consenting to jurisdiction, the insurer takes the risk of the interpretation that may be put upon [the document] by the courts. Id. at 96, 37 S.Ct. 344. Pennsylvania Fire, in other words, holds that the appointment of an agent for service of process will subject a foreign insurer to general personal jurisdiction in the forum if the governing state statute so provides. Later Supreme Court cases reinforce this rule. Just three years later, in Chipman, Ltd. v. Thomas B. Jeffrey Co., 251 U.S. 373, 40 S.Ct. 172, 64 L.Ed. 314 (1920), the Court applied a similar analysis, albeit without citation to Pennsylvania Fire. The Court in Chipman held that a New York statute requiring foreign corporations to designate an in-state person for service of process only extended personal jurisdiction over the corporation to cases involving business the corporation conducted in New York. Chipman, 251 U.S. at 379, 40 S.Ct. 172. The Court rested its decision on the New York courts' interpretation of the statute, quoting a state court decision holding that `[u]nless a foreign corporation is engaged in business within the state, it is not brought within the state by the presence of its agents.' Id. (quoting Tauza v. Susquehanna Coal Co., 220 N.Y. 259, 115 N.E. 915, 917-18 (1917)). The Supreme Court thus held that there was no personal jurisdiction over a defendant corporation that, by the time of litigation, had ceased doing business in New York, even though the corporation had not yet revoked the designation of its agent for service of process. Id. at 379-80, 40 S.Ct. 172. The Court faced a similar issue the following year. In Robert Mitchell Furniture Co. v. Selden Breck Construction Co., 257 U.S. 213, 42 S.Ct. 84, 66 L.Ed. 201 (1921), the defendant corporation had at one point conducted business in Ohio, but its last work [there] was finished roughly six months before suit was filed. Id. at 215, 42 S.Ct. 84. The corporation had maintained its ability to do business in Ohioand therefore retained an agent for service of process in that state. See id. Nevertheless, citing to both Pennsylvania Fire and Chipman, the Court held that if the long previous appointment of the agent is the only ground for imputing to the defendant an even technical presence, then [u]nless the state law [requiring appointment of a statutory agent] either expressly or by local construction gives to the appointment a larger scope, we should not construe it to extend to suits in respect of business transacted by the foreign corporation elsewhere. Id. at 216, 42 S.Ct. 84. [4] Noting that the Ohio Statutes, so far as they go, look to `liability incurred within this State' and that the state supreme court had not interpreted the statute more broadly, the Court held that service on the agent was defective. Id. Robert Mitchell thus confirms that federal courts should look first and foremost to a state's construction of its own statute to determine whether appointment of an agent for service of process is a sufficient basis for the exercise of personal jurisdiction over a foreign corporation. But Robert Mitchell does more than settle a dispute over the meaning of Ohio law. It also announces the default rule that, in the absence of broader statutory language or state court interpretations, the appointment of an agent for the service of process is, by itself, insufficient to subject foreign corporations to suits for business transacted elsewhere. That principle played out eight years later in Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. v. Chatters, 279 U.S. 320, 49 S.Ct. 329, 73 L.Ed. 711 (1929). The Court heard a dispute in which two out-of-state railway companies designated agents in Louisiana to receive service of process as required by a state law exacting formal consent by the corporation that any `lawful process' served on the designated agent should be `valid service' upon the corporation. Id. at 323-24, 49 S.Ct. 329. The Court held that jurisdiction was proper over a defendant on the ground that it was doing business in Louisiana. See id. at 326-29, 49 S.Ct. 329. Nevertheless, the Court noted that [f]or present purposes we may assume that the effect of the designation of the statutory agent by the [railway company] is, as the state decisions cited seem to show, that a cause of action arising wholly outside and wholly unconnected with any act or business of the corporation within the state may not be sued upon there. Id. at 325, 49 S.Ct. 329 (emphasis added). As in Robert Mitchell, the Supreme Court looked to state decisions to determine the reach of personal jurisdiction in Louisiana. Finally, in Perkins v. Benguet Consolidated Mining Co., 342 U.S. 437, 72 S.Ct. 413, 96 L.Ed. 485 (1952), the Supreme Court clarified that it is the corporate activities of the defendant, not just the mere designation of a statutory agent, that is helpful in determining whether the court has personal jurisdiction over the defendant. In upholding an Ohio state court's exercise of jurisdiction over a non-resident corporation, the Court stated that [t]he corporate activities of a foreign corporation which, under state statute, make it necessary for it to secure a license and to designate a statutory agent upon whom process may be served provide a helpful but not a conclusive test. Id. at 445, 72 S.Ct. 413. Whether the activities of a particular corporation make it reasonable and just to subject the corporation to the jurisdiction of that state are to be determined in each case. Id. In short, the degree to which a defendant is present in the forum is an important factor in determining personal jurisdiction. The simple act of appointing a statutory agent is not, nor has it ever been, a magical jurisdictional litmus test. Pennsylvania Fire, Chipman, and Robert Mitchell thus collectively stand for the proposition that federal courts must, subject to federal constitutional restraints, look to state statutes and case law in order to determine whether a foreign corporation is subject to personal jurisdiction in a given case because the corporation has appointed an agent for service of process. [5] Perkins suggests that the inquiry is particularly vital when the prospective defendantunlike the railroads in Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. has done no more than explore the possibility of doing business in the forum state. [6] We accordingly turn to the relevant Montana statutes and decisions.