Judge: Laura A. Seigle, Case: 23STCV17341, Date: 2023-10-25 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 23STCV17341    Hearing Date: October 25, 2023    Dept: 15

[TENTATIVE] ORDER RE MOTION TO QUASH (LIDGERWOOD)

            Plaintiffs Wayne Osenga and Esperanza Osenga allege Wayne Osenga was injured as a result of asbestos exposure from Defendant Lidgerwood Mundy Corporation’s products.  Defendant filed a motion to quash service of summons for lack of personal jurisdiction.

A defendant may move to quash service of summons on the ground of lack of jurisdiction of the court over him or her.  (Code Civ. Proc., § 418.10, subd. (a)(1).)  The court may dismiss without prejudice the complaint in whole, or as to that defendant, when dismissal is made pursuant to Section 418.10.  (Code Civ. Proc., § 581, subd. (h).) 

“A court of this state may exercise jurisdiction on any basis not inconsistent with the Constitution of this state or of the United States.”  (Code Civ. Proc., § 410.10.)  “The Due Process Clause protects an individual’s liberty interest in not being subject to the binding judgments of a forum with which he has established no meaningful ‘contacts, ties, or relations.’”  (Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz (1985) 471 U.S. 462, 471-472.)  A state court may not exercise personal jurisdiction over a party under circumstances that would offend “traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.”  (Asahi Metal Industry Co., Ltd., v. Superior Court of California, Solano County (1987) 480 U.S. 102, 113.) 

When a defendant moves to quash service of process on jurisdictional grounds, the plaintiff has the initial burden of demonstrating facts justifying the exercise of jurisdiction.  (Jayone Foods, Inc. v. Aekyung Industrial Co. Ltd. (2019) 31 Cal.App.5th 543, 553.)  Once facts showing minimum contacts with the forum state are established, the defendant has the burden to demonstrate that the exercise of jurisdiction would be unreasonable.  (Ibid.)  “The plaintiff must provide specific evidentiary facts, through affidavits and other authenticated documents, sufficient to allow the court to independently conclude whether jurisdiction is appropriate.  [Citation.]  The plaintiff cannot rely on allegations in an unverified complaint or vague and conclusory assertions of ultimate facts.  [Citation.]”  (Strasner v. Touchstone Wireless Repair & Logistics, LP (2016) 5 Cal.App.5th 215, 222.)

A defendant is subject to a state’s general jurisdiction if its contacts “are so continuance and systematic as to render [it] essentially at home in the forum State.”  (Daimler AG v. Bauman (2014) 571 U.S. 117, 127.)  A nonresident defendant may be subject to the specific jurisdiction of the forum “if the defendant has purposefully availed himself or herself of forum benefits [citation], and the ‘controversy is related to or “arises out of” a defendant’s contacts with the forum.’  [Citations.]”  (Vons Companies, Inc. v. Seabest Foods, Inc. (1996) 14 Cal.4th 434, 446.)  This test does not require a “causal relationship between the defendant’s in-state activity and the litigation.”  (Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Judicial District Court (2021) 141 S.Ct. 1017, 1026.)  The “arise out” of standard “asks about causation,” but “relate to” does not.  (Ibid.)  “[W]hen a corporation has ‘continuously and deliberately exploited [a State’s] market, it must reasonably anticipate being haled into [that State’s] court[s]’ to defend actions ‘based on’ products causing injury there.”  (Id. at p. 1027.) 

Plaintiffs do not dispute there is no general jurisdiction over Defendant.

Defendant argues Plaintiffs cannot prove specific jurisdiction because Defendant sold only a small number of pumps to a Navy subcontractor in California from 1978 to 1986.  (Motion at p. 6.)  Plaintiffs argue Defendant sold the pumps during the time ships on which Osenga served were being built.  (Opposition at pp. 3, 4.)

“In the products liability context, merely placing a product into the stream of commerce, even with knowledge that the product might enter the forum state, is not a sufficient basis for personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant.  [Citations.]  On the other hand, ‘if the sale of a product of a manufacturer or distributor . . . is not simply an isolated occurrence, but arises from the efforts of the manufacturer or distributor to serve, directly or indirectly, the market for its product in other States, it is not unreasonable to subject it to suit in one of those State if its allegedly defective merchandise has there been the source of injury to its owner or to others.’  [Citation.]”  (Jayone, supra, 31 Cal.App.5th at pp. 558-559.)  “[T]he indirect placement of products into the stream of commerce does not necessarily insulate a foreign manufacturer from the jurisdiction of California courts.  Even an indirect effort to serve a California market for a manufacturer's product may reasonably make that manufacturer subject to suit in California if its product has caused injury.”  (In re Automobile Antitrust Cases I & II (2005) 135 Cal.App.4th 100, 115.)  “A nonresident defendant's indirect sales through its California distributors constitutes economic activity in California as a matter of commercial actuality when the defendant earned substantial gross income from that activity.”  (Id. at p. 116.) 

Defendant acknowledges that from 1978 to 1986 it sold 213 pumps to a Navy contractor that owned a shipyard in California and shipped those pumps to California.  (Woodman Decl., ¶ 10.)  Plaintiffs also have some evidence that Defendant’s predecessor sold pumps for Navy ships built in California in the 1960s.  (See evidence cited at Opposition at p. 3.)  Defendant argues the sale of 213 pumps was random and it did not know they were going to California and therefore this case is not like the fact pattern presented in Ford.  However, building Navy ships is not like making and selling cars.  There are many fewer ships than cars built each year.  Plaintiffs have the right to take discovery on Defendant’s knowledge about where the ships were being built that would include the pumps it sold.  For example, when Defendant sold the 213 pumps, did it know the contractor buying the pumps was building the ships in California?

Plaintiffs have not shown that their claims arise out of or relate to Defendant’s California contacts.  One of the ships on which Osengo served was constructed in the 1960s in California, and another was constructed in California in 1979-1980, and so may have had Defendant’s pumps installed.  (Opposition at p. 3.)  (Plaintiffs mention Osenga’s service on Gridley (which may have contained Defendant’s pump) in 1980 in Long Beach, but they do not show that the presence of Defendant’s pump on that ship arises out of or relates to Defendant’s contacts with California.  Rather it looks like that ship was built in Washington State.  (Ex. 6.))

Plaintiffs have the right to discover whether Defendant knew the destination of the pumps it was selling and whether the ships on which Osenga served that were built in California contained Defendant’s pumps.  The request for discovery on that issue is granted.  The hearing on the motion is CONTINUED to January 18, 2024 at 9 a.m.  Plaintiffs may file a supplemental opposition brief and Defendant may file a supplemental reply brief on regular notice.

The moving party is to give notice.