Court Opinion

ID: 9461133
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:06:42.992967+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:54.452860
License: Public Domain

PHILLIPS, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. I would reverse the order of the District Court on the authority of In-Flight Devices Corporation v. Van Dusen Air, Inc., 466 F.2d 220 (6th Cir. 1972); King v. Hailey Chevrolet Co., 462 F.2d 63 (6th Cir. 1972); and Southern Machine Co. v. Mohasco Industries, Inc., 401 F.2d 374 (6th Cir. 1968).
In In-Flight, this court concluded that the Ohio legislature in adopting its long arm statute with respect to the transaction of business in the state intended to extend the jurisdiction of its courts to the constitutional limits. 466 F.2d at 224-225. See 466 F.2d at 229-231 for a discussion of the Ohio long arm statute as it relates to alleged tortious conduct rooted in a commercial transaction, which in part is what is alleged here.
I consider the case on which the majority places reliance, Margoles v. Johns, 157 U.S.App.D.C. 209, 483 F.2d 1212 (1973), to be distinguishable factually from the case at bar. In Margóles, there was only a projection over the telephone of a voice into the District in which the appellant was asserting jurisdiction. Contending that “projecting one’s presence” by means of a telephone call into the District was an insufficient basis on which to found personal jurisdiction over the nonresident telephone caller, the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed the District Court’s order dismissing the action.
In the present case, however, the individual defendants, residents of California, are charged to have had considera*934bly more “contacts”, International Shoe Co. v. State of Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 316, 66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945), with Ohio than mere projection of their voices over a telephone into the State. Here there were allegations respecting written correspondence between the individual defendants and the plaintiff-appellant Weller to induce Weller to sign one of the distributorship agreements and allegations of a scheme in violation of the antitrust laws by the individual defendants to impose and enforce in Ohio certain territorial restrictions in the distributorship agreements which were signed by Weller in Ohio. I do not read the statement in the affidavit of Weller, which is relied on by the majority, with respect to these three “contacts” of the individual defendants with Ohio to be worded in the disjunctive. Even with regard to the receipt of advertising literature in Ohio and the sending of agents to Ohio, the two areas in which the affidavit of Weller employs the disjunctive, there are express allegations in the answer memorandum filed in response to the motion to dismiss that the individual defendants (as opposed to the individual defendants or the corporate defendants) sent information through the United States Postal Service to Ohio and sent agents to Ohio. Considering all these circumstances, I would hold that the present case is materially different from Margóles and would follow what I consider to be the established precedents in this Circuit.1 In-Flight, supra; King, supra; Southern Machine, supra.
The pertinent facts of this case, in my view, are considerably more close to those in Murphy v. Erwin-Wasey, Inc., 460 F.2d 661 (1st Cir. 1972), than those in Margóles. In Murphy, as in this case, misrepresentations allegedly were made both over the telephone and through the mails. The First Circuit held in Murphy that when a nonresident defendant (albeit a corporation in that case) knowingly sends into a state a false statement with the intent that it should be relied on, the defendant has acted within the state for jurisdictional purposes.
Further, the sending of correspondence and literature through the mails makes this case comparable to McGee v. International Life Insurance Co., 355 U.S. 220, 78 S.Ct. 199, 2 L.Ed.2d 223 (1957). In McGee, the only contacts of a Texas insurance company with California were the mailing of certain certificates and premium notices into California and the receiving of the signed certificates and premium payments by mail from California on only one policy insuring a California resident.
The Supreme Court upheld the jurisdiction of a California court over the Texas insurance company in a suit by a California beneficiary of the policy, saying: “It is sufficient for purposes of due process that the suit was based on a contract which had substantial connection with that State [California]”. 355 U.S. at 223, 78 S.Ct. at 201.
For the reasons set forth above, I would hold that the District Court erred in deciding that the activities of the individual defendants or the consequences caused by them did not have “a substantial enough connection with the forum state to make the exercise of jurisdiction over the defendant [s] reasonable” (the third criterion for determining the outer limits of in personam jurisdiction, as set forth in Southern Machine, supra, 401 F.2d at 381). In my opinion, the connection of these individual defendants with the state of Ohio, as is alleged here, constitutes sufficient “minimum contacts”, International Shoe, supra, for the District Court to exercise jurisdiction over them.
Finally, I do not share the doubts of the majority that if the Ohio long arm *935statute is construed to permit service on these nonresident individuals and jurisdiction over them there would be “grave questions as to its constitutionality”. Weller alleged in his complaint that the individual defendants made their misrepresentations with intent to deceive him about the distributorship agreements which he ultimately signed.
“The element of intent . . . persuades . . . [me] that there can be no constitutional objection to [Ohio] asserting jurisdiction over the out-of-state sender of a fraudulent misrepresentation, for such a sender has thereby ‘purposefully avail [ed] . . . [himself] of the privilege of conducting activities within the forum State, thus invoking the benefits and protections of its laws.’ Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U.S. 235, 253, 78 S.Ct. 1228, 1240, 2 L.Ed.2d 1283 (1958).” Murphy, supra, 460 F.2d at 664.

. The District Court’s threshold determination that an individual corporate employee may be personally liable for tortious conduct committed while acting on behalf of his corporate employer is not challenged on appeal. See 19 Am.Jur.2d, Corporations § 1382 (1965).