Court Opinion

ID: 9703100
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:40:15.290589+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:45.651622
License: Public Domain

*278Allen, C.J.,
dissenting. The constitutional touchstone for personal jurisdiction is “whether the defendant purposefully established ‘minimum contacts’ in the forum State.” Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 474 (1985) (quoting International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 316 (1945)). Burger King further instructs that the application of the minimum contacts rule “will vary with the quality and nature of the defendant’s activity, but it is essential in each case that there be some act by which the defendant purposefully avails itself of the privilege of conducting activities within the forum State, thus invoking the benefits and protections of its laws.” Id. at 475 (quoting Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U.S. 235, 253 (1958)) (emphasis added).
The Court added, in language appropriate to the present facts:
This “purposeful availment” requirement ensures that a defendant will not be haled into a jurisdiction solely as a result of “random,” “fortuitous,” or “attenuated” contacts, or of the “unilateral activity of another party or a third person.” Jurisdiction is proper, however, where the contacts proximately result from actions by the defendant himself that create a “substantial connection” with the forum State. Thus where the defendant “deliberately” has engaged in significant activities within a State, or has created “continuing obligations” between himself and residents of the forum, he manifestly has availed himself of the privilege of conducting business there, and because his activities are shielded by “the benefits and protections” of the forum’s laws it is presumptively not unreasonable to require him to submit to the burdens of litigation in that forum as well.
Id. at 475-76 (emphasis in original; citations omitted).
I fail to see how the placement of an advertisement in a national publication, without more, is an act purposefully directed at Vermont. See Asahi Metal Industry Co. v. Superior Court of California, 480 U.S. 102, 112 (1987) (O’Connor, J., plurality, joined by Rehnquist, C.J., Powell, Scalia, JJ.) (placement of product into stream of commerce without more is not an act of defendant purposefully directed toward forum state); see also Burger King, 471 U.S. at 476 (defendant’s action must be purposefifily directed at forum state or citizens of forum state); World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286, 297 (1980) (mere foreseeability that defendant’s product will be purchased by consumer in forum state insufficient for jurisdictional purposes). We said as much in Carothers v. Vogeler, 148 Vt. 316, 319, *279532 A.2d 580, 582 (1987) (defendant did not avail himself of privileges of the state by advertising in national publication).
The majority attempts to distinguish Car others on grounds that the present defendants advertised not just once, but “more than one hundred times” in a national publication, and that the circulation of this national publication included Vermont. We have consistently examined the quantity of activity within Vermont as a factor in determining the quality and nature of activity required to make it reasonable for a defendant to conduct its defense in a foreign state. See id.; Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U.S. at 251; International Shoe Co., 326 U.S. at 319. The frequency of an activity does not, however, alter the nature of that conduct or convert it into conduct deemed to be directed at the citizens or state of Vermont. As of today, national advertising, an activity not regarded by its nature as directed at the state, is deemed to be so because of the number of times it is repeated.
Defendants either availed themselves of the “benefits and protections” of Vermont’s laws, or they did not. It should make no difference under the principles of Burger King, Hanson v. Denckla, and Asahi Metal Industry Co. whether defendants advertised once or a hundred times. The majority opinion subjects one advertising a product in the national media to personal jurisdiction in this state regardless of the fact that there are no other Vermont contacts. This exercise of jurisdiction exceeds the limits imposed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
I am authorized to say that Justice Dooley joins in this dissent.