Court Opinion

ID: 9466674
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:22:58.7182+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:52.271010
License: Public Domain

CLARKE, District Judge
(dissenting).
While I concur in the conclusions of law reached by my colleagues, I respectfully disagree with the determination that jurisdiction may not be asserted over the individual defendant Robert Ciatto.
Six of the individual defendants expressly denied in their affidavits any operational responsibility or involvement as to either Ortho Pharmaceutical Corporation (OPC), the New Jersey corporation, or to Ortho Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OPI), the Puerto Ri-can corporation. Robert Ciatto’s affidavit contained no such denial, and, in fact, contained an affirmative statement of operational control over OPI. Defendant Ciatto stated in his affidavit:
During the period I served on the Board of Ortho Pharmaceutical Corporation, I worked with other Board members to provide broad business, and commercial direction, particularly with regard to operations matters, to Ortho Pharmaceutical Corporation. In addition, I am presently and have been a member of the Board of Directors of Ortho Pharmaceuticals, Inc., its offices being located in Do-rado Beach, Puerto Rico, and as such I provide broad business, commercial, and operations direction to it. (emphasis added).
I am of the opinion that the language, as emphasized, in this affidavit reflects sufficient involvement in OPI’s operations to render Mr. Ciatto amenable to service of process and jurisdiction under the Puerto Rico long-arm statute, P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 32, App. II R. 4.7, and the law cited in the majority opinion of this Court.
My colleagues reasoned that Mr. Ciatto’s providing “broad business, commercial and operations directions” to OPI did not reflect sufficient personal involvement by Ciatto in the conduct that harmed plaintiff. Plaintiff, however, complains of an overall failure of management to give warnings that his workplace at OPI allegedly was contaminated; he does not complain of a specific, isolated act, such as a failure to inspect a loose beam which falls and injuries a party, a situation over which a board of directors *909has little or no control. By Mr. Ciatto’s own affidavit, he admits involvement in directing the operations of OPI. Such general policy direction should certainly encompass a decision to give or not to give warnings regarding the workplace of OPI, thereby constituting a prima facie case of jurisdictional facts under Puerto Rico’s long-arm statute. Under this analysis of Mr. Ciatto’s involvement, then, the district court’s holding as to jurisdiction over him should be reversed, and the matter remanded. Insofar as there was no jurisdiction as to OPC and six of the seven individual defendants, the district court should be affirmed.