Court Opinion

ID: 9797176
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:14:45.610203+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:52:58.628668
License: Public Domain

Justice EISMANN
specially concurring.
I concur in the majority opinion except with respect to its attempt to distinguish Akichika v. Kelleher, 96 Idaho 930, 539 P.2d 283 (1975), from this case. In my opinion, Akichika is not distinguishable and should be overruled insofar as it held that there was no long-arm jurisdiction based upon the commission of a tort in Idaho.
The majority seeks to distinguish Akichika from this case based upon where the injury occurred. According to the majority, Blimka “sustained injury when he took delivery of the jeans in Idaho, only then learning that they had been misrepresented.” The majority points out that Akichika took delivery of the pickup truck in Oregon and learned he had been defrauded when it broke down while he was driving back to Idaho. I cannot agree with the majority’s analysis because it confuses the injury caused by the fraud with the discovery of the fraud. The majority is also mistaken as to where Blimka took delivery. The jeans were sold F.O.B. California, which means that Blimka took delivery in California. I.C. §§ 28-2-301; 28-2-319(1)(a); 28-2-401(2)(a); 28-2-503(2); & 28-2-504(a). He was responsible for transporting the jeans to Idaho, he bore the risk of loss once they left the point of shipment in California, and he paid the cost of shipping them.
Akichika suffered injury when he paid $1,000 for the misrepresented truck, not when he later learned he had been defrauded after the truck broke down on his way back to Idaho. The money was taken out of his cheeking account in Homedale, Idaho. Likewise, Blimka suffered injury when he wired $21,000 to My Web Wholesaler, LLC, not when he later received the jeans and learned he had been defrauded. Blimka wants his money back from the defendants, not another shipment of jeans. Although learning of the fraud may injure one’s sense of justice, that injury is not compensable. It is the injury to one’s pocketbook that is compensable.
In both this case and Akichika, the fraudulent misrepresentations to induce the buyers to part with their money were made over the telephone by out-of-state sellers who were knowingly talking to prospective buyers located in Idaho. In both cases, the items being sold were existing goods. In both cases, the misrepresentations concerned the characteristics of those goods. In both cases the sellers misrepresented the goods in order to induce Idaho residents to purchase them. In both cases, the Idaho residents relied upon the misrepresentations and parted with money in order to obtain the goods. The only difference is that in Akichika the check representing the down payment was personally delivered to the out-of-state seller while in this case the payment was wired to the out-of-state seller. In my opinion, it does not matter whether the buyer thereafter physically delivered payment to the seller, mailed payment to the seller, or wired payment to the seller, the injury occurred in Idaho, and an Idaho court has jurisdiction.
The majority holds that there is long-arm jurisdiction in this ease because: (1) “[a]t all times during the communications, the defendants knew that Blimka was residing in Idaho” and therefore “ ‘their intentional, and allegedly tortious, actions were expressly aimed’ at Idaho”; (2) the defendants “realized that the brunt of the injury resulting from these actions would occur in Idaho”; and (3) “because the defendants purposefully directed their allegedly false representations into Idaho, the exercise of personal jurisdiction is presumed not to offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.” Those three factors also apply to the facts in Akichika.
*730The seller’s intentional and tortious actions were expressly aimed at Idaho because the seller in Akichika made the fraudulent misreprentations during a telephone call with a prospective purchaser he knew was in Idaho. Likewise, the seller in Akichika knew that the brunt of the injury resulting from the transaction would occur in Idaho. The down payment was drawn on a bank located in Idaho, and the balance of the payment was to be made at that bank. Finally, in Akichika, just as in this case, “because the defendants purposefully directed their allegedly false representations into Idaho, the exercise of personal jurisdiction is presumed not to offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.”
Akichika and this case are indistinguishable based upon an analysis of the relevant facts and law. By failing to overrule it, we simply create confusion as to the applicable law.