Opinion ID: 2206566
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: Shoppers' Fear of Virtually Unlimited Jurisdiction

Text: In its final argument Shoppers' raises the specter of virtually unlimited jurisdiction in the District over businesses and claims with little or no relationship to the District. This is an argument without support in fact or law. World-Wide Volkswagen, supra, made clear that the foreseeability that is critical . . . is that the defendant's conduct and connection with the forum State are such that he should reasonably anticipate being haled into court there. 444 U.S. at 297, 100 S.Ct. 559. Under our fact-driven analysis in this specific jurisdiction case, while Shoppers' advertising solicitation of customers from the District will support a slip and fall injury claim, vendors who sell their produce to Shoppers' stores  or, for that matter, a Shoppers' employee who slips and falls in a company warehouse in Maryland  are not within the class solicited by Shoppers' extensive advertising in The Washington Post. Moreover, non-directed Internet advertising might present a different factual situation from the one before us. See E-Data Corp. v. Micropatent Corp., 989 F.Supp. 173, 177 (D.Conn.1997) (defendant's Internet advertising that had the potential to reach . . . Connecticut consumers was insufficient as a basis for personal jurisdiction because hundreds of thousands of Web sites [existed] on the Internet). [W]here a defendant who purposefully has directed [its] activities at forum residents seeks to defeat jurisdiction, [it] must present a compelling case that the presence of some other considerations would render jurisdiction unreasonable. Burger King, supra, 471 U.S. at 477, 105 S.Ct. 2174. Shoppers has not presented a compelling case that the District now will exercise unlimited jurisdiction over businesses. Judge Schwelb's dissent, for its part, appears to depend entirely on the distinction between Ms. Moreno and a hypothetical plaintiff who could testify, Yes, I've seen Shoppers' ads, they've got great prices! Such testimony presumably would support the inference he believes necessary that the plaintiff was actually induced to visit a Shoppers store by the advertising. Insistence on whether the plaintiff saw the ads in question shifts the focus of the due process inquiry away from where the Supreme Court has placed it, on the defendant's actions. Furthermore, it minimizes the importance and purpose of the long-arm statute, which we have always understood to afford District residents broad access to our courts limited only by due process considerations. Accordingly, for the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. So ordered. WAGNER, Chief Judge, dissenting: The mere fact that a foreign corporation advertises for business within the District Columbia is insufficient under our long-arm statute for our local court to exercise personal jurisdiction over that corporation for claims unrelated to that advertising which arise wholly in the foreign state. [1] Since the majority appears to hold otherwise, I respectfully dissent. In order for the District of Columbia Courts to properly assert personal jurisdiction over a foreign corporation, service of process over the nonresident must be authorized by statute and be within the confines of the due process clause of the United States Constitution. Cohane v. Arpeja-California, Inc., 385 A.2d 153, 158 (D.C.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 980, 99 S.Ct. 567, 58 L.Ed.2d 651 (1978) (citing International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945)). The statutory provisions at issue here are D.C.Code §§ 13-423(a)(1) and -423(b) (long-arm statute). [2] There is no real dispute in this case that Shoppers Food Warehouse's (Shoppers') advertisements for customers within the District were sufficient minimum activities to meet the transacting business requirement of § 423(a)(1). See Trerotola v. Cotter, 601 A.2d 60, 63 (D.C. 1991) (citing Cohane, 385 A.2d at 158). [3] What divides the court is whether the further condition imposed by § 13-423(b) is satisfied. I agree with my dissenting colleagues that it is not. Section 423(b) bars the exercise of jurisdiction over a foreign corporation where the claim is unrelated to the business transacted in the District by the corporation. See Trerotola, 601 A.2d at 63. In other words, under this section, jurisdiction is limited to claims arising from the particular transaction of business which provides the basis for jurisdiction. Cohane, 385 A.2d at 158 (citing D.C.Code § 13-423(b)). Ms. Moreno's claim arose out of injuries she sustained in an accident which occurred in Shoppers' Maryland store as a result of Shoppers' negligent act or omission in the state of Maryland. There is simply no relationship here between Shoppers' advertisements in the District and Shoppers' alleged tortious conduct which caused Ms. Moreno to slip and fall in Maryland as required by our statute. To accept the contrary position would render the limitation imposed by § 423(b) a nullity. That we have interpreted this statute as permitting the exercise of personal jurisdiction over nonresident defendants to the extent permitted by the due process clause, [4] does not eliminate the requirement that the courts of this jurisdiction adhere to the process due under our statute. That process, as set forth in our long-arm statute, provides in § 423(a)(1) and (b) a specific basis for the court's exercise of personal jurisdiction over a foreign corporation. The exercise of that jurisdiction must conform to the statute and be consistent with due process. See Trerotola, 601 A.2d at 64; Cohane, 385 A.2d at 158. Under § 13-423(b), unless the claim has a discernible relationship to the `business' transacted in the District[,]. . . asserted jurisdiction exceeds the limits of the due process clause of the Constitution. Trerotola, 601 A.2d at 64 (citing Cohane, 385 A.2d at 158). Here, there was only the fortuity of Ms. Moreno having an accident in a store in Maryland belonging to Shoppers, a foreign corporation which happens to advertise for customers in a daily newspaper which is distributed in the metropolitan area. Her cause of action neither arises out of, nor is it related to Shoppers' advertising activities. For these reasons, and essentially for those set forth in Judge Schwelb's dissenting opinion, I respectfully dissent from the opinion of the court. SCHWELB, Associate Judge, with whom STEADMAN, Associate Judge, joins, dissenting: When this case was before the division, I explained in some detail why, in my view, Ms. Moreno has failed to establish that her claim ar[ose] from Shoppers' contacts with the District of Columbia. See Shoppers Food Warehouse v. Moreno, 715 A.2d 107, 112-16 (D.C.1998) ( Moreno I ) (dissenting opinion). I pointed out that [s]o far as we can discern from the record, Ms. Moreno would have suffered the injuries for which she seeks compensation in this action even if Shoppers had not advertised in the District at all. Id. at 113. The suggestion that Ms. Moreno's claim arises from Shoppers' advertising, when she would have sustained her injuries even in the absence of a single ad, ascribes a distinctly odd meaning to the rather straight-forward statutory language. I continue to adhere to the position I took in Moreno I, and rather than burdening a second volume of the Atlantic 2d Reporter with the same dissenting prose, I incorporate by reference my separate opinion at the division level. Because the en banc majority now invokes the legislative history of our long-arm statute, D.C.Code § 13-423(b) (1995), as well as the case law of certain other jurisdictions, I think it appropriate to add the following observations to the views expressed in my opinion in Moreno I.