Opinion ID: 195309
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Burden of Appearance.

Text: with forcing a California resident to appear in a Massachusetts court is onerous in terms of distance, and there are no mitigating factors to cushion that burdensomeness here. This burden, and its inevitable concomitant, great inconvenience, are entitled to substantial weight in calibrating the jurisdictional scales. Indeed, the Court has stated that this element, alone 13The approach that we endorse today differs slightly from that of the Ninth Circuit, which has crafted its own version of a sliding scale approach. The Ninth Circuit's methodology, as we understand it, incorporates the element of purposefulness into the third prong of the inquiry, and weighs it against the remaining considerations of reasonableness. See Core-Vent Corp. v. Nobel Indus. AB, 11 F.3d 1482, 1488 (9th Cir. 1993); see also Insurance Co. of North Am. v. Marina Salina Cruz, 649 F.2d 1266, 1271 (9th Cir. 1981) (The smaller the element of purposeful interjection, the less is jurisdiction to be anticipated and the less reasonable is its exercise.). 20 among the gestalt factors, is always a primary concern. Woodson, 444 U.S. at 292. These are not empty words, for most of the cases that have been dismissed on grounds of unreasonableness are cases in which the defendant's center of gravity, be it place of residence or place of business, was located at an appreciable distance from the forum. See, e.g., Asahi, 480 U.S. at 114 (Japanese defendant sued in California); Core-Vent Corp. v. Novel Indus. AB, 11 F.3d 1482, 1488-90 (9th Cir. 1993) (Swedish defendant sued in California; defamation action); Amoco Egypt Oil Co. v. Leonis Navigation Co., 1 F.3d 848, 852 (9th Cir. 1993) (Filipino defendant sued in Washington); Casualty Assur. Risk Ins. Brokerage Co. v. Dillon, 976 F.2d 596, 600 (9th Cir. 1992) (District of Columbia defendant sued in Guam; defamation action); Fields, 796 F.2d at 302 (British defendant sued in California). The effect of distance on jurisdictional outcomes is graphically illustrated by the two cases in which a defendant's contacts with the forum were most strikingly reminiscent of those that have been assembled here. Compare National Ass'n of Real Estate Appraisers, 1989 U.S. Dist. LEXIS at  (declining to assert jurisdiction over Rhode Island defendant who would have had to defend defamation suit in California) with Dion, 566 F. Supp. at 1387 (asserting jurisdiction over New York defendant forced to defend defamation suit in Pennsylvania). Furthermore, as the court below observed, the circumstances surrounding this case suggest that the 21 inconvenience to the defendant may not be coincidental. It is the rare libel case in which both the newspaper and the reporter, though amenable to process, are relegated to the sidelines at the behest of an avowedly defamed plaintiff. It is rarer still to discover that such a plaintiff has intentionally selected a forum in which punitive damages are unavailable, bypassing other fora in which such damages might be awarded. Such considerations are important. One reason that the factor of inconvenience to the defendant weighs heavily in the jurisdictional balance is that it provides a mechanism through which courts may guard against harassment. It is firmly settled that a plaintiff may not, by choice of an inconvenient forum, `vex,' `harass,' or `oppress' the defendant by inflicting upon him expense or trouble not necessary to his own right to pursue his remedy. Gulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert, 330 U.S. 501, 508 (1947) (citations omitted). And although vexatious suits are more frequently dismissed under the doctrine of forum non conveniens, we believe that the reasonableness analysis required by the third prong of the due process inquiry must be in service to the same ends.