BOSTON (Legal Newsline) - The manufacturer of a 2004 Chrysler Sebring can be sued in Massachusetts by a New Hampshire resident over an accident that occurred in that state because the car was first sold in Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled, reversing a lower court that held the connection between the accident and sale of the car was too remote to assert jurisdiction.
Citing a string of U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have set the outlines of personal jurisdiction over out-of-state companies, the highest court in Massachusetts ruled that the sale of a product within its borders was enough to allow non-residents to sue there under the state’s long-arm statute.
“Where a first sale of the automobile that caused the injury occurred in the state, there is a relationship between the claim stemming from that injury and the defendant's contacts in the forum,” the court ruled in a June 8 decision.
J. Paul Doucet was injured in 2015 in New Hampshire while riding in a car driven by another New Hampshire resident. The car had been shipped to Rhode Island in 2003, then transferred to a dealer in Massachusetts who leased it to a Massachusetts resident. Two other Massachusetts residents owned the car before it was sold to a New Hampshire resident in 2011, who subsequently sold it to the driver involved in the accident.
Doucet sued first in New Hampshire, but Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (now named Stellantis), removed the case to federal court where the judge dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction in New Hampshire.
He then sued in Massachusetts, naming FCA and the Massachusetts dealer. FCA again removed the case to federal court, which remanded it to state court because the involvement of the dealer defeated diversity jurisdiction. The trial court then determined it didn’t have jurisdiction and the Massachusetts Supreme Court took up the appeal on its own initiative.
Isolated transactions alone won’t establish jurisdiction, the high court ruled, but FCA’s Massachusetts transactions met the “but for” test: the sale of the car in the state was “the first step in a train of events” that ended in personal injury. The court cited another case where a Massachusetts resident was able to over a slip-and-fall at a California hotel because the hotel had solicited conference attendees in Massachusetts.
“The automobile was first sold in Massachusetts and remained here for several years before it was sold to a resident of a neighboring state,” the court concluded. “But for the first sale here, the Sebring would not have ended up with Doucet.”
The court also rejected FCA’s argument the accident in New Hampshire was too remote from its business contacts in Massachusetts to establish personal jurisdiction over the company, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2017 decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb. In that case, the court rejected California’s attempt to exercise jurisdiction over lawsuits by out-of-state residents against New York-based BMS, saying the plaintiffs’ claims had nothing to do with the company’s activities in California.
In this case, the Massachusetts high court ruled, FCA purposefully availed itself of the Massachusetts market and was on notice it might be sued over its products there. Further, the Supreme Court in 2020 ruled a man could sue Ford Motor in Minnesota over an accident in that state involving a Crown Victoria that had been manufactured in Canada and first sold in North Dakota.
“There are not only extensive business dealings by the defendant in the State in which is sought, but also business dealings related to the automobile that is the subject of the litigation,” the court concluded.
The plaintiff was represented by Deepak Gupta and drew a supporting brief from the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys. The New England Legal Foundation filed a brief in support of FCA.