Brandeburg v. New York Telephone & Telegraph Co.

Opinion

ELKINGTON, J. In a California action brought by plaintiff Bartholomew Brandeburg against New York Telephone and Telegraph Company [895](hereafter “New York Telephone”), a foreign corporation, for damages for personal injuries, the superior court granted New York Telephone’s motion to quash service of summons. Plaintiff has appealed from the order granting the motion.

The basic issue of the appeal is whether California could constitutionally exercise jurisdiction over the action.

California’s Code of Civil Procedure section 410.10 provides that: “A court of this state may exercise jurisdiction on any basis not inconsistent with the Constitution of this state or of the United States.”

Such an exercise of jurisdiction by the state against a nonresident corporation is consistent with due process and other constitutional principles, when the corporation’s activity consists of “an act done or transaction consummated in the forum State” or “some [other] act by which the [corporation] purposefully avails itself 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, 251, 253 [2 L.Ed.2d 1283, 1296, 1298, 78 S.Ct. 1228]; Buckeye Boiler Co. v. Superior Court, 71 Cal.2d 893, 898 [80 Cal.Rptr. 113, 458 P.2d 57].)

This rule was elaborated upon in Internat. Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 319 [90 L.Ed. 95, 103-104, 66 S.Ct. 154, 161 A.L.R. 1057], as follows: “It is evident that the criteria by which we mark the boundary line between those activities which justify the subjection of a corporation to suit, and those which do not, cannot be simply mechanical or quantitative. The test is not merely, as has sometimes been suggested, whether the activity, which the corporation has seen fit to procure through its agents in another state, is a little more or a little less. [Citations.] Whether due process is satisfied must depend rather upon the quality and nature of the activity in relation to the fair and orderly administration of the laws which it was the purpose of the due process clause to insure. That clause does not contemplate that a state may make binding a judgment in personam against an individual or corporate ■ defendant with which the state has no contacts, ties, or relations. [Citations.] [H] But to the extent that a corporation exercises the privilege of conducting activities within a state, it enjoys the benefits and protection of the laws of that state. The exercise of that privilege may give rise to obligations, and, so far as those obligations arise out of or are connected with the activities within the state, a procedure which requires the corporation to respond to a suit brought to enforce them can, in most instances, hardly be said to be undue.”