Court Opinion

ID: 9733724
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:15:26.020285+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:43.870417
License: Public Domain

BELSON, Senior Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully disagree with the majority’s holding that the trial court lacked personal jurisdiction over appellant, the Eastern Conference of Teamsters. The issue is whether the Conference reasonably could have anticipated being brought into court in the District of Columbia to litigate a claim of its former employee, appellant Cotter, that he was entitled to a supplemental retirement benefit. I begin by identifying the most salient facts.
—In 1956, Cotter, a District of Columbia resident, entered into an employment agreement with the Conference, which at the time had its headquarters in the District of Columbia.
—In his job, Cotter worked out of the Conference’s District of Columbia offices, and frequently transacted business for the Conference in the District of Columbia.
—In 1971, after Cotter had worked for the Conference for 15 years out of its District of Columbia offices, the Conference moved its offices a short distance across the District line to Bethesda, Maryland. Cotter, still a District resident, continued to transact business frequently for the Conference in the District of Columbia while working out of its Bethesda offices.
—In 1973, the Conference entered into oral agreements with Cotter and certain other employees to provide for a supplemental retirement benefit based upon the number of years of service.1
—Each employee’s supplemental retirement benefit was to be calculated on the basis of the equivalent of one week’s pay for each year the employee had worked, up to a total of three months’ or thirteen weeks’ pay.
—Cotter left the Conference’s employ to work for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in 1977.
—Of the thirteen years of work upon which Cotter bases his claim for the retirement benefit, he spent at least seven years working out of the Conference’s District headquarters. He worked out of the Bethesda, Maryland, headquarters for only six years. Even during those six years, Cotter worked for the Conference frequently in the District of Columbia assisting local unions that were members of the Conference. The local unions in the District of Columbia had approximately 13,000 members. Cotter also worked for the Conference in other jurisdictions, but the record does not disclose whether his work in those jurisdictions was frequent.
The Conference entered into an arrangement to give Cotter a supplemental retirement benefit that was in essence an additional term of an employment agreement between Cotter and the Conference that had been entered into in the District of Columbia. This course of contractual activity, particularly where the additional term related to services already rendered *67and to be rendered substantially in the District of Columbia, fell well within the reach of the “transacting any business” provision of the District’s long-arm statute, D.C.Code § 13-423(a)(l). Moreover, the very employment activities upon which Cotter based his claim to the supplemental retirement benefit were performed in substantial part within the District and were themselves transactions of business in the District that provided a second and independent basis for the assertion of long-arm jurisdiction. Accordingly, I conclude that the courts of the District of Columbia may exercise personal jurisdiction over the Conference in this case.
Analyzing whether the forum court can properly exercise personal jurisdiction over a defendant outside the jurisdiction and not otherwise shown to be subject to the court’s processes is conceptually a two-step inquiry: the court must look both to the District of Columbia long-arm statute and to the provisions of the Due Process requirement of the Fifth Amendment. The District of Columbia long-arm statute provides that a District of Columbia court may exercise jurisdiction over a non-resident defendant who transacts any business in the District, and we have held that this jurisdictional reach is coextensive with due process; i.e., our statute “permits the exercise of personal jurisdiction to the fullest extent of the Due Process Clause.” Mouzavires v. Baxter, 434 A.2d 988, 991 (D.C.1981) (en banc), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 1006, 102 S.Ct. 1643, 71 L.Ed.2d 875 (1982); see also Hummel v. Koehler, 458 A.2d 1187, 1190 (D.C.1983).2 “Thus, we have merged the [two] steps into a single due process analysis,” Smith v. Jenkins, 452 A.2d 333, 336 (D.C.1982); see also Mouzavires, supra, 434 A.2d at 992. Although this approach would appear to provide simplicity, it remains true that there is no easily administered test by which to determine whether a defendant’s contacts are sufficient to sustain jurisdiction.
What is clear, however, is that the only nexus required between the “transacting any business” subsection of the District’s long-arm statute and a nonresident defendant is “some affirmative act” by the defendant to bring itself within the court’s jurisdiction and to establish “minimum contacts.” Cohane v. Arpeja-California, Inc., 385 A.2d 153, 158 (D.C.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 980, 99 S.Ct. 567, 58 L.Ed.2d 651 (1978) (citing Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U.S. 235, 78 S.Ct. 1228, 2 L.Ed.2d 1283 (1958)); see Hummel, supra, 458 A.2d at 1190; International Shoe Co. v. Washington, supra note 2, 326 U.S. at 310, 66 S.Ct. at 154. In each case the court must assure that the defendant’s contacts are such that the maintenance of the suit in the forum state “does not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.” World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286, 292, 100 S.Ct. 559, 564, 62 L.Ed.2d 490 (1980) (quoting International Shoe, supra note 2, 326 U.S. at 316, 66 S.Ct. at 158). Although it is not acknowledged in the majority’s opinion, it is well-settled in this jurisdiction that
the “transacting any business” provision embraces those contractual activities of a nonresident defendant which cause a consequence here.... Moreover, to fall within the purview of § 13-423(a)(l), a nonresident defendant need not have been physically present in the District.
Mouzavires, supra, 434 A.2d at 992 (emphasis added); see, e.g., Rose v. Silver, 394 A.2d 1368 (D.C.1978); Cohane, supra, 385 A.2d at 159.
In interpreting the scope of § 13-423(b), which provides
[w]hen jurisdiction over a person is based solely upon this section, only a claim for relief arising from acts enumerated in this section may be asserted against him [or her],
the majority states that this subsection “bars claims ‘unrelated to the acts forming the basis for personal jurisdiction.’ ” (Majority at 63) (quoting Willis v. Willis, 211 *68U.S.App.D.C. 103, 106, 655 F.2d 1333, 1336 (1981)). This court, however, has construed the statutory language in a way that seems to connote a more inclusive approach on issues of jurisdiction, stating that the language is “meant to prevent ‘the assertion of claims in the forum state that do not bear some relationship to the acts in the forum state relied upon to confer jurisdiction.’ ” Cohane, supra, 385 A.2d at 158 (quoting Malinow v. Eberly, 322 F.Supp. 594, 599 (D.Md.1971)).3 Furthermore, once the claim is related to acts in the District, the long-arm statute does not require that “the scope of the claim be limited to activity within this jurisdiction.” Id. at 159.
The facts upon which this court based its holding that the Superior Court had jurisdiction over the party sued in Cohane bear more than a passing similarity to the facts here. Id. Cohane, a resident of Delaware, was employed as an independent agent by Arpeja-California, Inc., a California corporation which manufactured women’s apparel. Cohane was assigned to sell Arpeja’s clothing in the area of eastern Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and Washington, D.C. Cohane brought suit against Arpeja in the District of Columbia, claiming that pursuant to his employment contract, as orally modified, he was entitled to certain commissions which Arpeja failed to pay. On these facts, i.e., that Arpeja sold goods to clothing stores in the District of Columbia, received a benefit from those sales, and Cohane’s claim for commissions arose, at least in part, out of sales in the District, this court held that it could exercise personal jurisdiction over Arpeja without offending due process.
Cohane’s claim for the commissions through the orally modified contract can be analogized to Cotter’s claim for the retirement benefit through the “implied-in-fact” contract in the instant case. Analogizing further, the Conference provided services to member unions in the District through Cotter and presumably discharged an obligation to those unions by doing so, and also received a benefit from rendering this service. Thus, Cotter’s claim for the retirement benefit arose, at least in substantial part, out of his transacting business for the Conference in the District. As I have pointed out, Cotter was frequently performing work for the Conference during this entire thirteen years upon which his claim is based, and during the first seven of those years, worked out of the Conference’s District offices.
To determine the jurisdictional issue, the court must first consider whether the Conference transacted any business in the District within the meaning of § 13-423(a)(l), and then decide whether Cotter’s breach of contract claim for the retirement benefit “bear[s] some relationship” to this activity. Cohane, supra, 385 A.2d at 158. There is no doubt that the Conference was, for twenty-one years, frequently transacting business in the District through Cotter himself. Also, the Conference and Cotter entered into and executed an employment contract while the Conference maintained its offices in the District.
It is true that the Conference made the oral “implied-in-fact” contract for the retirement “benefit” after it moved its office to Maryland.4 It does not follow, however, as the majority posits, that this “implied-in-fact” retirement benefit contract was an entirely independent Maryland contract. To the contrary, the retirement benefit arrangement was, necessarily, an additional term of the existing employment contract established in the District to be performed *69in large part in the District. The majority opinion acknowledges that Cotter and the Conference had a “longstanding written bilateral, employment contract” and that, in 1973, the Conference established an “oral, unilateral, implied-in-fact contract [for] a severance gift” for Cotter and certain other employees. [Majority at 64, note 3] The majority opinion ignores, however, the obvious: that such a retirement benefit can be conferred only upon one who already has an employment agreement with the Conference. Without the original employment contract, such a supplemental retirement benefit would have been meaningless. In my view, it is reasonable to consider the entirety of the Conference’s contractual dealings with Cotter as an employee in determining whether the Conference transacted business within the District from which Cotter’s claim arises. It scarcely can be said that the asserted claim does not “bear some relationship” to contractual activity in the District. See Cohane, supra, 385 A.2d at 158. Thus, the Conference’s dealings with Cotter within the District provided an adequate basis for personal jurisdiction over the Conference.
A second, conceptually distinct, and independently adequate basis for jurisdiction arose from the fact that a large part of the actual work over a thirteen-year period on which Cotter bases his claim for supplemental retirement benefit was performed in the District of Columbia. He spent the first seven of those years working out of the Conference’s District headquarters and during that time was frequently engaged in providing services to local unions and thus transacting business within the District of Columbia. Even after the Conference moved its headquarters to nearby Maryland, Cotter frequently worked in the District serving the local unions. Thus, Cotter’s claim bears a strong relationship to business Cotter transacted for the Conference in the District, and this too serves as a basis for the assertion of personal jurisdiction.
The dispositive issue is not, as the majority asserts, whether the Conference could reasonably be said to have anticipated being haled into court in the District to litigate as “a result of sending Conference representatives to the District to work with unions there.” (Majority at [65]) Rather, the issue is whether the Conference could reasonably have anticipated being haled into court in the District of Columbia to litigate a claim arising out of an additional term to an employment contract with Cotter which was originally entered into in the District, which was performed in large part by Cotter’s transactions of business for the Conference in the District, and which gave rise to a claim for benefits the preponderance of which were earned while the Conference’s offices were in the District. The very statement of the issue demonstrates that there are affirmative acts by the Conference that have a nexus with Cotter’s claims. The “contractual activities of [the] nonresident defendant,” and its breach which “cause[d] a consequence here,” Mouzavires, supra, 434 A.2d at 992 (emphasis added), provided an adequate basis for jurisdiction. In addition, Cotter’s actions in frequently transacting business in the District for the Conference over the course of 13 years provided an independent basis for jurisdiction.
Under the circumstances present here, the Conference should reasonably have anticipated being brought into a court in the District to litigate the retirement benefit in question. Therefore, the courts of the District of Columbia can exercise personal jurisdiction over the Conference in the instant case. I dissent.

. Cotter refers to this benefit as "severance pay.” The Conference refers to it as a “gift,” a misnomer if it was called for by a contract that gave Cotter an enforceable right.

. Under § 13-423(a)(l), less of a nexus between the defendant and the District is required for a finding of jurisdiction than would be necessary under the "doing business" test used to determine corporate presence. See International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945).

. The court in Cohane, supra, 385 A.2d at 159, asserted that this view is supported by the legislative history of § 13-423, which is modeled after the Uniform Interstate and International Procedure Act. The court relied on the note of the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws which stated in reference to the Uniform Act counterpart of § 13-423:
The concept of cause of action or claim for relief should be broadly construed to cover an entire transaction so that, when possible, the entire dispute may be settled in a single litigation. Subdivision (b) is designed to prevent assertion of independent claims unrelated to any activity described in subdivision (a) of § 103.
Id. (quoting 13 U.L.A. § 103 at 288 (1975) (emphasis in original)).

. For the limited purpose of reaching the threshold issue of jurisdiction, we accept Cotter’s contentions in this regard.