Court Opinion

ID: 9448045
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:21:23.737515+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:16.104112
License: Public Domain

BLACKMUN, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I regard this case, as did Judge Henley below, as “an extremely close one”. The question is whether the Arkansas law, as interpreted by that state’s Supreme Court and as applied to the facts here, compels us to conclude that the case is governed by Rodgers v. Howard, 215 Ark. 43, 219 S.W.2d 240, on the one hand, or by Chapman Chemical Co. v. Taylor, 215 Ark. 630, 222 S.W.2d 820, on the other. Chapman followed Rodgers within three months in 1949 but did not cite the earlier case. Each apparently involved an Arkansas damage situs. If the present case were the first to be decided under the Arkansas statute or if this court were in a position to formulate Arkansas law, I suspect that I would be influenced in favor of Arkansas jurisdiction here by (a) the fact that the governing statute, No. 347 of Acts 1947, now found as § 27-340 of Ark.Stats. 1947, was enacted at the very first legislative session following International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95, and thus seemingly was influenced and prompted by that Supreme Court decision, see Leflar, *205Conflict of Laws, 1948-9, 3 Ark.Law Rev. 18, 23, and American Farmers Ins. Co. v. Thomason, 1950, 217 Ark. 705, 234 S.W.2d 37, 39, footnote 3; (b) the Arkansas court’s apparent approval in 1948, in Gillioz v. Kincannon, 213 Ark. 1010, 214 S.W.2d 212, 214, of Dean Leflar’s statement in 1 Ark.Law Rev. 201, that “The principal purpose of Act 347 of 1947 was to extend the circumstances in which Arkansas courts may exercise personal jurisdiction to render judgments in personam on constructive service against non-resident defendants in suits on causes of action arising out of acts done by such defendants in Arkansas”; and (c) the general and recognizable trend of the judicial decisions in favor of a broad rather than a narrow concept of jurisdiction, Frene v. Louisville Cement Co., 77 U.S.App.D.C. 129, 134 F.2d 511, 516; International Shoe Co. v. Washington, supra; Perkins v. Benguet Mining Co., 342 U.S. 437, 72 S.Ct. 413, 96 L.Ed. 485; Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U.S. 235, 251, 78 S.Ct. 1228, 2 L.Ed.2d 1283; compare Judge Miller’s comments in Fritchey v. Summar, D.C.W.D.Ark.1949, 86 F.Supp. 391, 396.
Gillioz, however, was followed by Rodgers, a case factually similar to this one, where the court, while presented with an opportunity expansively to interpret its then recent statute in the light of International Shoe, definitely declined so to do and was content to characterize the statute as “not intended to change the rule concerning the breaking of the journey of interstate shipments”, at page 242 of 219 S.W.2d. See Case Note Foreign Corporations — “Doing Business”, 1953, 7 Ark.L.Rev. 403, 405, and compare Leflar, The Law of Conflict of Laws, 1959, § 42, p. 71. Rodgers has not been overruled, limited or judicially criticized, so far as I can determine, and, with Chapman involving stronger and distinguishable facts, thus stands unmolested in the Arkansas reports. Rodgers was last recognized, as to this point, although with neither approval nor disapproval, in Hot Springs School Dist. v. Surface Combustion Corp., 1953, 222 Ark. 594, 261 S.W.2d 769, 771.
This leaves me in the position where I am not convinced that Judge Henley’s conclusion is not a permissible one and that until the Supreme Court of the State of Arkansas speaks otherwise, “no basis exists for our interference with the trial court’s determination of the Arkansas law”. National Bank of Eastern Ark. v. General Mills, Inc., 8 Cir., 283 F.2d 574, 578. This to me is the necessary and simple solution to the present appeal.*

 I feel, furthermore, that this is in line with the interpretation given the Arkansas substituted service statutes in nine separate opinions by experienced federal judges in that state. McWhorter v. Anchor Serum Co., D.C.W.D.Ark.1947, 72 F.Supp. 437; Fritchey v. Summar, D.C.W.D.Ark.1949, 86 F.Supp. 391; American Casualty Co. v. Harrison, D.C.W.D.Ark.1951, 96 F.Supp. 537; Green v. Equitable Powder Mfg. Co., D.C.W.D.Ark.1951, 99 F.Supp. 237; Henderson v. Rounds & Potter Lumber Co., D.C.W.D.Ark.1951, 99 F.Supp. 376; Charles Keeshin, Inc. v. Gordon Johnson Co., D.C.W.D.Ark.1952, 109 F.Supp. 939, all by Judge Miller; Tiner v. Insulrock Corp., D.C.E.D.Ark.1954, 120 F.Supp. 11, by Judge Trimble; Chandler v. G. W. Gladder Towing Co., D.C.E.D.Ark.1956, 143 F.Supp. 568, by Judge Lemley; McAvoy v. Texas Eastern Transmission Corporation, D.C.W.D.Ark.1960, 185 F.Supp. 784, by Judge Henley; see Bruner v. Republic Acceptance Corporation, D.C.E.D.Ark. 1961, 191 F.Supp. 200, 206. These decisions seem to me to be generally consistent with one another, even though a ' conclusion in favor of jurisdiction was reached in four of them and a conclusion against jurisdiction was reached in the other five.