Court Opinion

ID: 9558517
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:11:19.241544+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:21.354347
License: Public Domain

SHEPARD, Justice,
concurs in part and dissents in part.
I concur with the opinion of the majority except as it deals with the threshold issue of jurisdiction.
Although the majority opinion fairly states the facts, I deem additional emphasis should be placed on the fact that the entire transaction took place in the state of California, i. e., the actual sale, the delivery of the pipe to respondent and the payment therefor. The only contact by appellant with the state of Idaho was placing a solicitation of business in the mail, telephone conversations between California and Idaho and the mailing of offers and acceptances. Any previous business between Cal-Cut and Idaho residents was evidently conducted in substantially the same fashion.
I am unable to accept the majority’s gloss of Akichika v. Kellerher, 96 Idaho 930, 539 P.2d 283 (1975) vis a vis the instant case. In Akichika, this Court affirmed a lower court ruling that no jurisdiction existed because the contacts with Idaho were not sufficient to constitute “transacting business within Idaho.” In Akichika, the plaintiff advertised in a newspaper having some circulation in Idaho which prompted telephone inquiries between Idaho and Oregon. There, as here, an Idaho resident journeyed into another state and made a purchase which was returned to Idaho. The transfer of title was to take place through an escrow at an Idaho bank and the seller personally entered Idaho and attempted to obtain possession of the vehicle. When that effort failed, he attempted to use Idaho legal machinery to gain possession of the vehicle. Nevertheless, the Court .there held that such activity did not constitute the requisite minimum contacts within the state of Idaho so as to confer jurisdiction. In my judgment Akichika cannot be distinguished and should be either followed or overruled in the instant case.
Insofar as the U. S. Supreme Court has stated its opinion in these matters, I believe their decisions do not speak with the clarity found by the majority opinion. In International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945), the Court did indeed state as quoted by the majority opinion here. There, however, during the three year period of time under scrutiny, International Shoe employed 11 resident salesmen in Washington whose activities were confined to that state and consisted of exhibiting samples and renting rooms in hotels or other buildings. International Shoe shipped its merchandise F.O.B. into the state of Washington. The Court there held that such a course of business within the state constituted a sufficient doing of business to render International amenable to the tax laws of Washington. Compare, however, American Oil Co. v. Neill, 380 U.S. 451, 85 S.Ct. 1130, 14 L.Ed.2d 1 (1965) wherein the Court held a sufficient nexus did not exist between the seller of petroleum products and the state of Idaho to validate a tax on petroleum products sought to be imposed by the state of Idaho. That result obtained albeit millions of gallons of American’s petroleum products were delivered by common carrier into the state of Idaho and thereafter used to power common carrier vehicles over the highways of the state of Idaho.
I must concede the existence of McGee v. International Life Ins. Co., 355 U.S. 220, 78 S.Ct. 199, 2 L.Ed.2d 223 (1957). The only explanation which I can draw from the terse, non-rationalized opinion of the Court in McGee is that if one is faced with an action involving an insurance carrier “that’s different.”
It is my belief that if the U. S. Supreme Court were faced with the facts of the instant case, it would hold that the standard of minimal contacts with the state of Idaho has not been met and that the jurisdiction of the Idaho courts should be denied.