Opinion ID: 6105188
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: 3d at 1282; Cassidy, 920 A.2d at 232.

Text: “To establish a prima facie showing of personal jurisdiction in Rhode Island, a plaintiff’s allegations must satisfy the demands of Rhode Island’s long-arm statute, G.L. 1956 § 9-5-33.” St. Onge, 219 A.3d at 1282 (brackets omitted) (quoting Cassidy, 920 A.2d at 232). That statute provides that “[e]very foreign corporation    that shall have the necessary minimum contacts with the state of Rhode Island, shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the state of Rhode Island    in every case not contrary to the provisions of the constitution or laws of the United States.” Section 9-5-33(a). This Court has interpreted § 9-5-33 to permit the exercise of jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant to the fullest extent allowed by the United States Constitution. See St. Onge, 219 A.3d at 1283. Before this Court, plaintiff asserts that the Superior Court has specific jurisdiction over the Bridgestone defendants. The determination of whether there is specific jurisdiction over a defendant requires a two-step inquiry: (1) determining whether the defendant has sufficient minimum contacts with the forum state and (2) determining whether the litigation “offend[s] traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.” St. Onge, 219 A.3d at 1284 (quoting Rose v. Firstar Bank, 819 A.2d 1247, 1250 (R.I. 2003)). -7- With regard to minimum contacts, we have said that “[a] party makes a successful prima facie showing of specific jurisdiction over a defendant where ‘the claim sufficiently relates to or arises from any of a defendant’s purposeful contacts with the forum.’” St. Onge, 219 A.3d at 1284 (quoting Cassidy, 920 A.2d at 233). “The defendant must have ‘performed some act by which it purposefully availed itself of the privilege of conducting activities within the forum state, thus invoking the benefits and protections of its laws.’” Id. (quoting Cassidy, 920 A.2d at 233). In reviewing a defendant’s contacts with the forum, this Court looks to the “quality and quantity” of the contacts, St. Onge, 219 A.3d at 1285 (quoting Rose, 819 A.2d at 1250), and whether “the defendant’s conduct and connection with the forum [s]tate are such that [the defendant] should reasonably anticipate being haled into court there.” World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286, 297 (1980). “When there is no such connection to the forum state, specific jurisdiction is lacking regardless of the extent of a defendant’s unconnected activities in the state.” St. Onge, 219 A.3d at 1285 (brackets omitted) (quoting Bristol-Myers Squibb Company v. Superior Court of California, San Francisco County, 137 S. Ct. 1773, 1781 (2017)). Furthermore, “[s]pecific jurisdiction must rest on a defendant’s voluntary contact with the forum and not on ‘the unilateral activity of another party or a third person.’” Knox v. MetalForming, Inc., 914 F.3d 685, 692 (1st Cir. 2019) (quoting Burger King Corporation v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 475 (1985)). -8- We begin by addressing plaintiff’s contention that the hearing justice committed an error of law when he analyzed each of the Bridgestone defendants’ contacts with Rhode Island “separately” rather than jointly. The plaintiff cites no caselaw to support its contention that a court should analyze the contacts of separate entities in the aggregate for purposes of specific personal jurisdiction. See State v. Florez, 138 A.3d 789, 798 n.10 (R.I. 2016) (“It is not enough merely to mention a possible argument in the most skeletal way, leaving the court to do counsel’s work, create the ossature for the argument, and put flesh on its bones. Judges are not expected to be mindreaders. Consequently, a litigant has an obligation to spell out its arguments squarely and distinctly, or else forever hold its peace.” (deletions omitted) (quoting United States v. Zannino, 895 F.2d 1, 17 (1st Cir. 1990))). Furthermore, plaintiff seems to indicate in her own pleadings that each of the Bridgestone defendants were separate and distinct entities by laying out each of the Bridgestone defendants’ place of incorporation and/or principal place of business in her second amended complaint: BATO is incorporated in Delaware and has its principal place of business in Tennessee; BAI is incorporated in Nevada and has its principal place of business in Tennessee; and BRO is incorporated in Delaware and has its principal place of business in Illinois. Therefore, we conclude that the hearing justice did not err when he analyzed the contacts of each of the Bridgestone defendants separately. -9- We next assess whether plaintiff’s claims “sufficiently relate[] to or arise[] from any of [the Bridgestone] defendant[s’] purposeful contacts with the forum.” St. Onge, 219 A.3d at 1284 (quoting Cassidy, 920 A.2d at 233). The plaintiff asserts that this relatedness requirement is satisfied here because, according to plaintiff, there is a nexus between Rhode Island, plaintiff’s claim for wrongful death, and the Bridgestone defendants. Specifically, plaintiff points to the fact that the decedent was a Rhode Island resident who died in Rhode Island; the subject tire was purchased by two Rhode Island companies, Peterbilt Rhode Island and Patriot;4 and the “Bridgestone defendants[] [had] extensive contacts with Rhode Island and their intent [was] to conduct business in Rhode Island.” In support of her argument, plaintiff highlights both the recent United States Supreme Court decision in Ford Motor Company v. Montana Eighth Judicial District Court, 141 S. Ct. 1017 (2021), and the stream-of-commerce theory first set forth by the Supreme Court in World-Wide Volkswagen, cited supra, to support her assertion that her claims sufficiently relate to the Bridgestone defendants’ purposeful contacts with the forum. In support of this contention, plaintiff argues that in Ford, the United States Supreme Court “considered and unanimously rejected the very 4 We pause to note that plaintiff’s framing of Patriot as a Rhode Island company is inconsistent with the allegation contained in plaintiff’s second amended complaint that Patriot “is a foreign for-profit corporation organized and existing under the laws of Massachusetts with its principal place of business in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.” - 10 - same arguments raised by the Bridgestone defendants[.]” Her reliance on Ford is misplaced. Assuming, without deciding, that the Bridgestone defendants have each purposefully availed themselves of the laws of Rhode Island, our review of the record of this case and the relevant caselaw, including the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Ford, leads us to conclude that plaintiff’s claims do not “relate to” the Bridgestone defendants’ contacts with Rhode Island. See Ford, 141 S. Ct. at 1026. In Ford, the Supreme Court addressed whether Montana and Minnesota state courts could exercise specific personal jurisdiction over the Ford Motor Company in products-liability suits stemming from car accidents in each of the respective states. Ford, 141 S. Ct. at 1022, 1023. In both cases, the car accident occurred in the state where the suit was brought, and the victim was a resident of that state. Id. at 1022. Although Ford conceded that it had purposefully availed itself of the laws of each state by doing “substantial business” in the states, it contended that jurisdiction was improper because “the particular car involved in the crash was not first sold in the forum [s]tate, nor was it designed or manufactured there.” Id. at 1022, 1026. Ford claimed instead that its activities in the forum states did “not sufficiently connect to the suits, even though the resident-plaintiffs allege[d] that Ford cars malfunctioned in the forum [s]tates.” Ford, 141 S. Ct. at 1026. “In Ford’s view, the needed link must be causal in nature: Jurisdiction attaches ‘only if the defendant’s forum conduct gave rise to the plaintiff’s claims.’” Id. The Supreme Court, however, - 11 - disagreed with what it classified as Ford’s “causation-only” approach, noting that the approach found “no support in [the Supreme] Court’s requirement of a ‘connection’ between a plaintiff’s suit and a defendant’s activities.” Id. (quoting Bristol-Meyers, 137 S. Ct. at 1776). The Supreme Court then articulated the following: “None of our precedents has suggested that only a strict causal relationship between the defendant’s in-state activity and the litigation will do. As just noted, our most common formulation of the rule demands that the suit ‘arise out of or relate to the defendant’s contacts with the forum.’ [Bristol-Meyers,] 137 S. Ct. at 1780[.] The first half of that standard asks about causation; but the back half, after the ‘or,’ contemplates that some relationships will support jurisdiction without a causal showing. That does not mean anything goes. In the sphere of specific jurisdiction, the phrase ‘relate to’ incorporates real limits, as it must to adequately protect defendants foreign to a forum. But again, we have never framed the specific jurisdiction inquiry as always requiring proof of causation—i.e., proof that the plaintiff ’s claim came about because of the defendant’s in-state conduct.    So the case is not over even if, as Ford argues, a causal test would put jurisdiction in only the [s]tates of first sale, manufacture, and design. A different [s]tate’s courts may yet have jurisdiction, because of another ‘activity [or] occurrence’ involving the defendant that takes place in the [s]tate.” Ford, 141 S. Ct. at 1026 (second emphasis added). The Supreme Court then, consistent with dicta laid out in World-Wide Volkswagen, held that a state court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant “[w]hen a company like Ford serves a market for a product in a [s]tate and - 12 - that product causes injury in the [s]tate to one of its residents[.]” Id. at 1022 (emphasis added). The Supreme Court in Ford ultimately held that the plaintiffs’ claims sufficiently related to Ford’s contacts with the forum states to support specific personal jurisdiction because the “resident-plaintiffs allege[d] that they suffered instate injury because of defective products that Ford extensively promoted, sold, and serviced in Montana and Minnesota.” Id. at 1032 (emphasis added). Previously, the Supreme Court in World-Wide Volkswagen stated that, “if the sale of a product of a manufacturer or distributor    is not simply an isolated occurrence, but arises from the efforts of the manufacturer or distributor to serve, directly or indirectly, the market for its product in other [s]tates, it is not unreasonable to subject [a manufacturer or distributer] to suit in one of those [s]tates if its allegedly defective merchandise has there been the source of injury to its owners or to others.” World-Wide Volkswagen, 444 U.S. at 297 (emphasis added). The phrase “has there been the source of injury” in World-Wide Volkswagen suggests that the product has both been directed toward the forum state and has caused injury in the forum state. Id.; see Bristol-Meyers, 137 S. Ct. at 1780 (“In other words, there must be ‘an affiliation between the forum and the underlying controversy, principally, an activity or an occurrence that takes place in the forum [s]tate and is therefore subject to the [s]tate’s regulation.’” (brackets omitted) (emphasis added) (quoting Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, 564 U.S. 915, 919 (2011))). - 13 - Both Ford and World-Wide Volkswagen demonstrate that the hearing justice in the case at bar was correct in rejecting the application of the stream-of-commerce theory for specific jurisdiction in this case. See Ford, 141 S. Ct. at 1022; World-Wide Volkswagen, 444 U.S. at 297. Here, the injury allegedly caused by the tire occurred in Connecticut; plaintiff’s claims did not “arise[] from a car accident in” Rhode Island. Ford, 141 S. Ct. at 1028. Although the decedent was a resident of Rhode Island whose death ultimately occurred in Rhode Island, those facts alone are not enough; it was key in Ford that the injury also occurred in the forum state. See Ford, 141 S. Ct. at 1032-33 (noting that “the place of a plaintiff’s injury and residence    still may be relevant in assessing the link between the defendant’s forum contacts and the plaintiff’s suit”). Furthermore, the allegedly defective tire was manufactured and installed in Tennessee, not in Rhode Island, and the rotator truck was later brought to Massachusetts by Sterry Street itself. We are therefore satisfied that there are insufficient indicia in the record to support plaintiff’s assertion that her claims arise out of or relate to the Bridgestone defendants’ contacts with Rhode Island. Accordingly, the hearing justice did not err when he determined that the Superior Court could not exercise specific personal jurisdiction over the Bridgestone defendants.5 5 Because we have determined that plaintiff’s claims do not sufficiently arise out of or relate to the Bridgestone defendants’ contacts with the forum, we need not look - 14 -