Court Opinion

ID: 9693152
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:26:27.937486+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:41.581859
License: Public Domain

ROBINSON, J.,
with whom FLAHERTY, J.,
joins concurring.
I concur in the judgment and in the result reached by the majority, and I readily acknowledge the thoughtful and scholarly nature of the majority’s opinion. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to express my respectful disagreement with one aspect of that opinion’s reasoning with re*235spect to the general jurisdiction issue: I simply do not believe that the fact that the defendant Bradley Bush delivered goods in Rhode Island “at the behest of his employer” (as the majority phrases it) is an appropriate factor to consider in deciding the question of general personal jurisdiction vel non.
In my view, it is legally irrelevant that the reason for Mr. Bush’s coming to Rhode Island approximately twelve times a year to make deliveries was that his job made such trips necessary. The operative fact is that he did enter this jurisdiction and did conduct business (delivering goods) in this jurisdiction approximately twelve times a year. Why he came here neither adds to nor subtracts from that operative fact.4 The fact that Mr. Bush came to Rhode Island because his employer sent him here rather than because he opted to come here for his own purely personal reasons has no bearing on the fact that he was indeed present here and conducted commercial activity here. See Calder v. Jones, 465 U.S. 783, 790, 104 S.Ct. 1482, 79 L.Ed.2d 804 (1984) (“Petitioners are correct that their contacts with California are not to be judged according to their employer’s activities there. On the other hand, their status as employees does not somehow insulate them from jurisdiction. Each defendant’s contacts with the forum State must be assessed individually.”) (emphasis added); see also Keeton v. Hustler Magazine, Inc., 465 U.S. 770, 781 n. 13, 104 S.Ct. 1473, 79 L.Ed.2d 790 (1984) (“[W]e today reject the suggestion that employees who act in their official capacity are somehow shielded from suit in their individual capacity.”).
Imagine, by way of example, a conductor employed by Amtrak. If that conductor passes through Rhode Island on the Boston to New York run each weekday morning collecting tickets en route and assisting passengers at the station stops and then returns to Boston on the New York to Boston run in the afternoon performing the same activities year in and year out, it would be my view that Rhode Island has general jurisdiction over that conductor. See Calder, 465 U.S. at 790, 104 S.Ct. 1482. The fact that the conductor’s employment relationship is the cause of his or her entering Rhode Island so frequently and conducting business here is irrelevant. Acts have consequences, and one of the consequences of the conductor’s accepting employment with a company such as Amtrak is the likelihood that he or she may be subject to the jurisdiction of more than one forum.
Having said that, I nonetheless agree that the Superior Court had no general jurisdiction over defendant Bradley Bush. The brevity and paucity of his trips to Rhode Island coupled with the de minimis nature of his business dealings here convince me that an assertion of general jurisdiction over him would be improper even given our liberal and expansive long-arm statute.5 The record simply does not indicate that Mr. Bush engaged in the sort of continuous and systematic activity in this forum that is required for there to be general jurisdiction over him.

. If a defendant was present in this jurisdiction as the result of genuine duress, a court would surely take that fact into account in dealing with an in personam jurisdiction issue. But there is no such allegation in this case.

. See G.L.1956 § 9-5-33(a).