Opinion ID: 496994
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Mabry and MRPC

Text: 8 Because neither Dr. Mabry nor MRPC is a domiciliary or resident of Mississippi, Rittenhouse had to demonstrate the propriety of personal jurisdiction as to these defendants under Mississippi's long-arm jurisprudence. 9 The Mississippi Code provides three potentially relevant bases for obtaining jurisdiction in this case: the long-arm statute, section 13-3-57, which itself states three bases for obtaining jurisdiction over a nonresident; a corporate law provision, section 79-1-27, subjecting foreign corporations doing business in Mississippi to suit there; and the attachment provisions, sections 1131-1 et seq., providing for jurisdiction over defendants with property in Mississippi.
10 In pertinent part, section 13-3-57 provides: 11 Any nonresident person ... or any foreign or other corporation not qualified under the constitution and laws of this state as to doing business here, who shall make a contract with a resident of this state to be performed in whole or in part by any party in this state, or who shall commit a tort in whole or in part in this state against a resident of this state, or who shall do any business or perform any character of work or service in this state, shall by such act or acts be deemed to be doing business in Mississippi. 12 According to the statute, such acts have the effect of appointing the Mississippi Secretary of State as agent for process in any actions or proceedings accrued or accruing from such act or acts, or arising from or growing out of such contract or tort, or as an incident thereto.... 13 No Mississippi case has ever held that this statute is coextensive with federal due process, and so our inquiry must focus on the statute itself. See Smith v. DeWalt Products Corp., 743 F.2d 277, 278 (5th Cir.1984) (refusing to consider due process issue because of lack of jurisdiction under Mississippi's long-arm statute). 1
14 The first basis for jurisdiction arises if the nonresident makes a contract to be performed in whole or in part in Mississippi. This contract prong does not apply on the present facts. Suits by patients against physicians are customarily brought as tort actions. This is so because the parties rarely enter formal contracts. The responsibilities of doctor to patient are imposed by law and liability results when the physician's level of care falls short of his legal duty. See, e.g., Hall v. Hilbun, 466 So.2d 856, 866-69 (Miss.1985). Nonetheless, we have identified no Mississippi authority to prevent us from also analyzing the relationship as contractual, at least for purposes of the long-arm statute. See 61 Am. Jur.2d Physicians, Surgeons, and Other Healers Sec. 158, at 290-91 (1981) (The relationship between a physician and patient may result from an express or implied contract.... [T]he voluntary acceptance of the physician-patient relationship by the affected parties creates a prima facie presumption of a contractual relationship between them.); cf. United Companies Mortgage of Mississippi, Inc. v. Jones, 465 So.2d 1083, 1084 (Miss.1985) (stating that an action for legal malpractice may sound in tort or contract); Hutchinson v. Smith, 417 So.2d 926, 927 (Miss.1982) (same). 15 In some circumstances, a plaintiff in what is essentially a medical malpractice case might be able to make a prima facie showing of jurisdiction under the contract prong. Rittenhouse has not. She has not identified any act that she, Mabry, or MRPC performed or were to perform in Mississippi pursuant to any explicit or implicit contract. As far as the record reflects, any contract was entered into, performed, and, for the sake of argument, breached in Tennessee. That is where the unsuccessful procedure began and continued to its unsuccessful conclusion. The statute requires that the contract be one to be performed in whole or in part in Mississippi. [M]erely contracting with a resident of the forum state is insufficient ... to subject the nonresident to the forum's jurisdiction. Colwell Realty Investments v. Triple T Inns, 785 F.2d 1330, 1334 (5th Cir.1986). Accordingly, Mabry and MRPC are not amenable to jurisdiction on a contract theory. 2
16 Mabry and MRPC are not amenable under the tort prong for the same reason that prevents the exercise of jurisdiction under the contract prong: the act of alleged negligence was committed and completed in Tennessee. Although Mississippi law does not require that all elements of the tort occur in that state, at least some part of the tort must be committed in Mississippi. See, e.g., Smith v. Temco, 252 So.2d 212, 216 (Miss.1971); Western Chain Co. v. Brownlee, 317 So.2d 418, 421 (Miss.1975); Waffenschmidt v. Mackay, 763 F.2d 711, 720 (5th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1056, 106 S.Ct. 794, 88 L.Ed.2d 771 (1986); Breedlove v. Beech Aircraft Corp., 334 F.Supp. 1361, 1365 (D.Miss.1971). The tort is complete when the injury itself occurs, see Smith, 252 So.2d at 216, and so Rittenhouse's continuing pain and discomfort, suffered as a result of the injury after she returned to Mississippi, do not qualify as a tortious occurrence in Mississippi. Cf. Estate of Portnoy v. Cessna Aircraft Co., 730 F.2d 286, 290 (5th Cir.1984) (commenting, in case involving Mississippi's long-arm statute, [A] tort occurs when and where the actual injury or accident takes place, and not at the place of the economic consequences of that injury.).
17 The final means of asserting jurisdiction under the long-arm statute is by showing that the nonresident defendant conducts any business or perform[s] any character of work or service in Mississippi. This basis for long-arm jurisdiction dates back at least to the 1942 Code. See Davis-Wood Lumber Co. v. Ladner, 210 Miss. 863, 50 So.2d 615, 620 (1951). By contrast, the contract and tort prongs did not take effect until 1964. See Mladinich v. Kohn, 250 Miss. 138, 164 So.2d 785, 789 (1984). The court in Mladinich was called upon to construe the pre-1964 statute and adopted a tri-partite test from Tyee Construction Co. v. Dulien Steel Products, Inc., 62 Wash.2d 106, 381 P.2d 245, 245 (1963): 18 (1) The nonresident defendant or foreign corporation must purposefully do some act or consummate some transaction in the forum state; (2) the cause of action must arise from, or be connected with, such act or transaction; and (3) the assumption of jurisdiction by the forum state must not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice, consideration being given to the quality, nature, and extent of the activity in the forum state, the relative convenience of the parties, the benefits and protection of the laws of the forum state afforded the respective parties, and the basic equities of the situation. Mladinich, 164 So.2d at 790. 19 Seven years later, in Smith v. Temco, 252 So.2d 212 (Miss.1971), the state supreme court held that the Mississippi legislature intended to broaden the scope of the statute by the 1964 addition of the tort and contract prongs. Id. at 215. Nevertheless, the limitations of Mladinich 's tri-partite test retain viability, but only as to the 'doing business' category of Mississippi's existing long-arm statute. Thompson, 755 F.2d at 1167. 3 See Republic-Transcon Industries, Inc. v. Templeton, 253 Miss. 132, 175 So.2d 185, 189 (1965) (applying three-part test in doing business case); Collins v. Truck Equipment Sales, Inc., 231 So.2d 187, 188 (Miss.1970) (same; no causal link between defendant's forum activities and alleged negligence); Ga-Pak Lumber Co. v. Nalley, 337 So.2d 1270, 1274 (Miss.1976) (no jurisdiction because elements of Mladinich test were not met). Thus we turn our attention to the Mladinich test. 20 There is no evidence in the record that MRPC has ever purposefully do[ne] some act or consummate[d] some transaction in Mississippi. MRPC is a professional corporation consisting of about twenty doctors. They confine their respective practices to hospitals in Memphis and the corporation does not solicit patients from Mississippi or advertise there. On these facts, Rittenhouse has not shown that MRPC meets even the first element of the tri-partite test. 21 Although, as noted below, Mabry has consummate[d] some transaction in Mississippi by purchasing property there, this lawsuit is not related to that act and so the Mladinich nexus requirement is not satisfied. 4 Smith v. DeWalt Products Corp., 743 F.2d 277, 279 (5th Cir.1984) (same); see Allen v. Jefferson Lines, Inc., 610 F.Supp. 236, 239 (D.Miss.1985) (no jurisdiction because, inter alia, of lack of nexus between injury and defendant's Mississippi activities). Except for this property purchase, Mabry has no other contact with Mississippi. He is not licensed to practice medicine in Mississippi, does not reside there, advertise his services there, or conduct any business whatever in that state. On this record, we must hold that neither Mabry nor MRPC are amenable to personal jurisdiction under the doing business prong of section 13-3-57. 22 Rittenhouse cites cases from other jurisdictions finding personal jurisdiction over nonresident physicians or hospitals on somewhat similar facts. Those cases involve the long-arm statutes of other states and are also distinguishable in that the defendant had taken some act to purposely avail himself of the benefits of the forum state. For example, in Cubbage v. Merchent, 744 F.2d 665 (9th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1005, 105 S.Ct. 1359, 84 L.Ed.2d 380 (1985), the Arizona doctors over whom jurisdiction was sought in California had applied for and were issued California Medi-Cal numbers. Id. at 667. This enabled them to receive reimbursement from the State of California for treating patients covered by Medi-Cal. Mabry and MRPC did not similarly avail themselves of benefits offered by Mississippi. This conclusion is not affected by the fact that the Memphis hospitals, where Mabry and other MRPC doctors carried on a large part of their practice, may have done business in Mississippi. These hospitals were not shown to be the agents or alter egos of Mabry or MRPC and were not acting on behalf of them; nor were Mabry or MRPC employees of the hospitals. 23 Kenerson v. Stevenson, 604 F.Supp. 792 (D.Me.1985), also cited by Rittenhouse, is even less persuasive. A Maine resident had traveled to New Hampshire for treatment and later brought suit against the New Hampshire doctor, hospital, and the hospital president. The doctor apparently did not contest personal jurisdiction, and the court held it had jurisdiction over the hospital and its president. The hospital participated in a regional organization that contemplated the emergency transfer of its patients to a hospital in Portland, Maine, and the hospital received reimbursement from the State of Maine for covered Maine patients treated at the New Hampshire hospital. Mabry and MRPC did not have the type of contacts with Mississippi that the New Hampshire hospital in Kenerson had with Maine. Moreover, the court noted that the plaintiffs' claim in Kenerson did not arise out of the defendants' activities in Maine; under the doing business prong of Mississippi's long-arm statute, the lack of such a nexus deprives the court of personal jurisdiction over the nonresident. 24 Rittenhouse also claims Lemke v. St. Margaret Hospital, 552 F.Supp. 833 (N.D.Ill.1982), as support. There, an Illinois resident sued inter alia an Indiana doctor and hospital in Illinois for causing the death of her son. The court held that under Illinois law, the physician was susceptible to jurisdiction on a doing business theory because the hospital solicited patients for him. Id. at n. 6. The doctor had not controverted plaintiff's doing business allegations, and the court accepted them as true. Id. at 838. The court also assumed that the physician had been compensated for treating Illinois residents with Illinois funds from private or public sources. Id. at n. 5. As to public sources, this latter fact distinguishes Lemke, and in any event we are not inclined to hold that Mississippi's doing business prong embraces the view that a hospital's solicitation can be imputed to its affiliated physicians. This would be a rather expansive definition of purposeful availment, and though there was Illinois precedent for the result in Lemke, there is no similar Mississippi support for that outcome here. 25 Finally, Rittenhouse relies on Frazer v. McGowan, 198 Conn. 243, 502 A.2d 905 (1986). In that case, the Connecticut Supreme Court held that a Rhode Island hospital was amenable to jurisdiction in Connecticut because it solicited patients in Connecticut through advertising and by granting Connecticut doctors admitting privileges. However, unlike the hospital in Frazer, Mabry and MRPC did not solicit business in Mississippi, and this distinguishes that case. The defendant doctor in Frazer was a Connecticut resident and thus obviously subject to personal jurisdiction in that state, which he apparently never contested. 5 26 In sum, we hold that Mabry and MRPC are not amenable to jurisdiction under the doing business prong of Mississippi's long-arm statute because the relevant facts do not satisfy the Mladinich tri-partite test.
27 The Mississippi Supreme Court has construed section 79-1-27, which is one of the statutes regulating corporations, as supplemental to the state's long-arm statute. Arrow Food Distributors, Inc. v. Love, 361 So.2d 324, 327 (Miss.1978), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1073, 99 S.Ct. 845, 59 L.Ed.2d 39 (1979), overruled on other grounds, Hollingsworth v. Bovaird Supply Co., 465 So.2d 311 (Miss.1985). Section 79-1-27 (repealed effective January 1, 1988) provides: Any corporation claiming existence under the laws of any other state or of any other country foreign to the United States, found doing business in this state, shall be subject to suit here to the same extent that corporations of this state are, whether the cause of action accrued in this state or not. 28 At the outset, it is clear that this statute has no application to Mabry in his individual capacity. In this case it applies only to MRPC. The chief difference between section 79-1-27 and the doing business prong of the long-arm statute is the absence of any express nexus requirement under section 79-1-27. See Arrow, 361 So.2d at 327; Aycock v. Louisiana Aircraft, Inc., 617 F.2d 432, 435 (5th Cir.1980) (rejecting under section 79-1-27 the requirement of a direct link and finding jurisdiction because action was incident to defendants' business activity in Mississippi), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 917, 101 S.Ct. 1361, 67 L.Ed.2d 343 (1981); contra Washington v. Norton Manufacturing, Inc., 588 F.2d 441, 446 (5th Cir.1979) (stating that Mladinich test applies to section 79-1-27), cert. denied, 442 U.S. 942, 99 S.Ct. 2886, 61 L.Ed.2d 313 (1979). 29 However, even when jurisdiction is sought under section 79-1-27, it remains necessary for plaintiff to prove that the nonresident corporation does business in Mississippi. Smith, 743 F.2d at 281; Schmid v. Roehm GMBH, 617 F.Supp. 655, 658 (S.D.Miss.1985). For the reasons already discussed, we have concluded that MRPC conducted no business in Mississippi and, consequently, section 79-1-27 does not provide a state law basis for in personam jurisdiction over MRPC.
30 A third method of asserting jurisdiction arises under Mississippi's attachment statutes. Miss.Code Ann. Secs. 11-31-1 et seq. This method permits the exercise of jurisdiction over defendants, inter alia, with lands and tenements in Mississippi. See Administrators of the Tulane Educational Fund v. Cooley, 462 So.2d 696 (Miss.1984) (discussing attachment basis of jurisdiction), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 820, 106 S.Ct. 70, 88 L.Ed.2d 57 (1985); Gough v. Mabsco, Inc., 335 So.2d 910, 911 (Miss.1976) (attachment case). This basis of jurisdiction cannot apply to MRPC because nothing in the record suggests that it owns any property in Mississippi. However, Mabry owns a condominium in Pickwick Lake, Mississippi. 31 Insofar as Rittenhouse challenges the magistrate's April 1986 order denying her motion to amend, we hold that the matter is not properly before us, inasmuch as no appeal therefrom to the district court was ever taken or attempted and the district court did not in any way review or confirm this order or have any opportunity to do so. Central Progressive Bank v. Fireman's Fund Ins. Co., 658 F.2d 377, 383 (5th Cir.1981); United States v. Renfro, 620 F.2d 497, 500 (5th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 921, 101 S.Ct. 321, 66 L.Ed.2d 149 (1980). The order of the magistrate was not a judgment under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 636(c)(3) and is not within the provisions of Fed.R.Civ.P. 73(c), but is rather governed by Fed.R.Civ.P. 72. Here the district court, Judge Biggers, had dismissed the suit against appellees on August 6, 1985, and had denied reconsideration thereof on August 23, 1985. Judge Davidson's August 4, 1986 agreed order dismissing Methodist Hospitals makes absolutely no reference to appellees or to anything other than Rittenhouse's claims against Methodist Hospitals (and appellees did not join in or consent to that order), and it is the only district court order in the case subsequent to August 23, 1985, except for Judge Biggers' February 24, 1986 order transferring the case to Judge Davidson. Rittenhouse does not claim that the district court's August 23, 1985 order denying her motion for reconsideration of the August 6 order dismissing her suit against appellees also denied her motion to amend. The request to amend, though made in the motion to reconsider (as well as in a separate motion filed the same day), is not referenced in the August 23 order. Even if that order be deemed a denial of the request to amend, the denial would be reviewed under an abuse of discretion standard. Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana v. Harry L. Laws Co., 690 F.2d 1157, 1163-64 (5th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 814,104 S.Ct. 69, 78 L.Ed.2d 83 (1983). No such abuse is reflected here. When the district court made its August 6, 1985 ruling, the case had been pending approximately one year, and throughout that time Rittenhouse had known of appellees' jurisdictional challenge; moreover, since not later than December 1984, Rittenhouse had known of every fact suggesting an attachment theory. However, prior to August 16, 1985, Rittenhouse never asserted, or sought to assert, attachment as a basis for jurisdiction, did not allege, or seek to allege, facts necessary to support jurisdiction on that basis, and did not ever attempt to have attachment process issued. No possible good cause for this delay is suggested. Cf. Fed.R.Civ.P. 4(j). 32 We reject Rittenhouse's appeal so far as it asserts that she was erroneously prevented from proceeding on an attachment theory.