Jurisdiction (Personal)

• Author: International Law Group
• Pages: 12-13

Page 12

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (defendant), originally incorporated in New Jersey in 1899, maintains its headquarters in North Carolina. Defendant has been licensed to do business in Washington state since 1940 but has no manufacturing or production facilities in the state.

Since at least 1998, defendant has maintained an office and up to forty full-time employees in Washington. From 1999-2002, defendant sold between 2.5 and 3 million cigarettes to distributors in Washington annually, generating $145-$240 million in net sales each year.

Nilo D. Tuazon (plaintiff) was born and grew up in the Republic of the Philippines. He began smoking cigarettes at age seventeen and has been smoking continually for more than forty years. Plaintiff began experiencing a persistent cough ten to fifteen years ago, and, in 2003, doctors diagnosed him with a chronic lung disorder. Later that year, he immigrated to the United States and settled in Washington state.

Plaintiff is still seeking treatment in Seattle. He alleges that defendant took part in a global conspiracy to suppress information about the effects of cigarettes. Though the conspiracy had originated in the United States, it had moved abroad by the 1970s through affiliates and subsidiaries, such as the Asian Tobacco Council, the Philippines Tobacco Institute, and Fortune Tobacco. This in turn worsened plaintiff's health problems despite warnings from friends and family.

Defendant moved to dismiss plaintiff's complaint on grounds of lack of personal jurisdiction and forum non conveniens. The district court denied the motions, and defendant appealed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirms.

Since the parties agree that plaintiff's claim arises from defendant's conduct outside of Washington, the Court has to decide whether defendant's contacts with the state suffice to support the exercise of general jurisdiction there. This involve analysis (1) of whether Washington's jurisdictional statute confers jurisdiction over the nonresident defendant and, if so, (2) whether the exercise of statutory jurisdiction comports with federal due process requirements.

The Washington Supreme Court has no rigid or formulaic test for determining when a company is "doing business" in Washington. Instead, it conducts a fact-intensive, case-by-case analysis. In this case, defendant has long been doing a business in Washington that generates substantial revenue. It has been licensed to operate in...