Plaintiff Raisa R. Mayes appeals from a final judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Vincent L. Broderick, Judge, dismissing her legal malpractice suit for lack of personal jurisdiction over the defendants, David A. Leipziger and Levy, Le-ipziger and Normington (“Levy, Leipzig-er”). The appeal raises the question whether New York’s long-arm jurisdiction statute, New York Civil Practice Law and Rules (“CPLR”) § 302(a)(1), subjects to the jurisdiction of the New York courts a California attorney and his California law firm who never entered New York but who undertook in letters and telephone calls from California to New York the representation of a New York resident in litigation in California. We agree with the district court that the defendants did not “transact business” in New York within the meaning of CPLR § 302(a)(1), and we affirm the judgment of the district court.
I. FACTS
In 1976, Mayes, a New York resident, brought an action in federal court in California (“California action”) against two Cal
During Leipziger’s representation of Mayes, Leipziger and Bobbe corresponded several times on matters related to the handling of the case: Bobbe sent Leipziger drafts of motion papers Bobbe had prepared; Leipziger mailed to Bobbe copies of the revised motion papers submitted to the court; Leipziger wrote Bobbe requesting authority to order a portion of the trial transcript and asking for instructions with respect to a check from the California defendant against whom the verdict had been obtained, tendered in satisfaction of the judgment in the California action; Bobbe wrote back authorizing the purchase of the transcript and instructing Leipziger to return the check.
Eventually, on January 7, 1980, the motions for a new trial, inter alia, were argued and were denied from the bench, and Leip-ziger so informed Bobbe by telephone. Leipziger evidently agreed during the same telephone conversation to handle the case on appeal. On the following day Bobbe wrote Leipziger, stating the minimum amount Mayes would be willing to accept in settlement and forwarding the filing fees necessary to institute the appeal. Written orders embodying the California district court’s oral denial of the motions apparently were to be entered on or about February 29,1980, which Leipziger reported to Bobbe on February 29; Leipziger promised to prepare a notice of appeal the following week.
During the next several weeks Bobbe repeatedly wrote Leipziger asking whether the notice of appeal had been filed. Notwithstanding his inquiries, Bobbe heard no more from Leipziger on the subject of the appeal for nearly three months. Leipziger finally wrote Bobbe on May 15 informing him that the notice of appeal had not been timely filed. Leipziger also stated that his motion to permit a late filing nunc pro tunc had been denied.
Mayes subsequently brought the present action in New York Supreme Court against Leipziger and his firm seeking $500,000 in damages for legal malpractice on account of their failure to file a timely notice of appeal in the California action. Defendants removed the action to federal court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a) (1976), alleging that
In response to the defendants’ motion, Mayes contended that the court had jurisdiction pursuant to New York CPLR § 302(a)(1) which gives the New York courts jurisdiction over a nondomiciliary “who in person or through an. agent . . . transacts any business within the state,” as to any cause of action arising from such transaction. Mayes claimed that Bobbe had acted as the defendants’ agent in connection with defendants’ representation of Mayes in the California action, and that defendants had therefore transacted business in New York, within the meaning of § 302(a)(1), through Bobbe.
In a memorandum order dated August 31, 1981, the district court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss, ruling that Bobbe plainly had acted only as the agent of Mayes and that the defendants therefore had not transacted business in New York through an agent within the meaning of § 302(a):
It is patent that plaintiff’s counsel functioned as agent for plaintiff throughout the continuing course of defendants’ relationship with plaintiff. He retained defendants on behalf of plaintiff; he supervised, or attempted to supervise, their work product on behalf of plaintiff; now he is attempting to sue them on behalf of plaintiff. He was never agent of defendants, and jurisdiction over defendants cannot be predicated upon his activities.
This appeal followed.
II. DISCUSSION
CPLR § 302(a)(1) provides as follows: (a) Acts which are the basis of jurisdiction. As to a cause of action arising from any of the acts enumerated in this section, a court may exercise personal jurisdiction over any nondomiciliary, or his executor or administrator, who in person or through an agent:
1. transacts any business within the state or contracts anywhere to supply goods or services in the state; ....
On appeal Mayes argues that § 302(a)(1) gives the court jurisdiction because the defendants transacted business in New York in person as well as through an agent. We find neither contention meritorious.
A. The Contention that Bobbe Was Defendants’ Agent
In the district court Mayes appears to have argued solely that § 302(a)(1) applied because Bobbe was the agent of the defendants. Like the district court, we find this contention to be totally lacking in factual merit.
The term “through an agent” as used in § 302(a)(1) has not yet been definitively interpreted by New York’s highest court. Two of the leading cases,
Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc. v. Franklyn,
On the other hand, federal district courts sitting in New York and lower New York state courts have looked to the “realities” of the situation and have construed § 302(a)(l)’s use of the word “agent” to include any person who, with the consent of the nondomiciliary and under some measure of his control, acts in New York for the benefit of the nondomiciliary.
See, e.g., PPS, Inc. v. Jewelry Sales Representatives, Inc.,
when the action is between a third party who dealt with a representative of the non-domiciliary in this state, the activities of that representative will be imputed to the non-domiciliary when he requested the performance of those acts in New York and those acts benefit him, and this is true without regard to whether the representative is an agent or an independent contractor.
McLaughlin, Practice Commentaries, supra, C302:3, at 41 (Supp.1981-82).
We need not attempt to determine for purposes of the present case which test the New York Court of Appeals would adopt, were it squarely confronted with the question, for even under the more relaxed standard, which apparently was applied below, Mayes failed to make a prima facie showing of jurisdiction. 3 Mayes sought to substantiate her contention that Bobbe was the agent of the defendants by presenting Bobbe’s written affirmation together with copies of correspondence between Leipziger and Bobbe. The facts that, as found by the district court, Bobbe was Mayes’s own attorney, that he was acting in her interests rather than for the benefit of the defendants, and that it was Bobbe who directed the actions of the defendants rather than vice versa, fairly leap from the pages of Mayes’s documents. For example, in responding to Leipziger’s first letter, which had sought to preserve defendants’ right not to handle an appeal for Mayes, Bobbe wrote:
This would be a matter of great disappointment to us, but, of course, we would not want you to continue to act against your better judgment. In the event of the denial of the motion, would you be willing to give us the reciprocal right to engage other counsel or to act ourselves? If so, then we gladly accept the terms that you set forth.
(Bobbe letter to Leipziger dated October 25, 1979; emphasis added.) As to the procurement of a transcript, Bobbe wrote, “I do hereby authorize you to order it, and if an additional amount must be paid over and above the deposit of $50.00 I will reimburse you therefore.” (Bobbe letter to Leipziger dated December 12, 1979; emphasis added.) A few weeks later Bobbe wrote:
In accordance with my promise of last evening, I enclose herewith my check to your order ... for filing the notice of appeal . .. and for the docketing of the appeal.... I would also ask you to order the transcript . . . and to let me know the amount required by the reporter in advance.
Before serving the notice of appeal, I would approve of your sounding out our opponents as to the possibility of a realistic settlement. I am authorized [sic] by the client to say that the least amount at which she is [sjc] willing to settle is $45,-000... .
(Bobbe letter to Leipziger dated January 8, 1980; emphasis added.) As to the prosecution of the appeal, Bobbe wrote, “Please confirm the fact that the notice of appeal has been filed.... The client and I are most anxious that we proceed with the appeal as promptly as possible. ...” (Bobbe letter to Leipziger dated April 8, 1980.) And after learning that a notice of appeal had not been timely filed, Bobbe wrote, after detailing arguments that could be advanced to obtain leave for a late filing, “Now, I must mention my personal grievance .... I must say that we will have to take a most serious view of all this if we should now be deprived of our right to appeal.” (Bobbe letter to Leipziger dated May 19, 1980.)
Thus, although Bobbe’s affirmation suggests that the defendants used him as their agent to procure Mayes’s consent to their acting as her attorneys and their agent to fashion the arguments to be proffered in
B. The Contention of Activity “in Person”
On appeal Mayes also contends that the court had jurisdiction over the defendants because, by virtue of Leipziger’s telephone calls and written communications from California to Bobbe in New York, the defendants transacted business “in person” within New York. This argument appears to have been disclaimed in the district court, as Bobbe’s affidavit in opposition to the motion to dismiss stated as follows:
The moving papers assert that the long-arm statute of New York does not apply here because the defendants have not engaged in any “systematic and continuous activity” in New York, .. . but plaintiff has never suggested that they had been so engaged.... The complaint made it abundantly clear (par. 15) that the basis of jurisdiction was the “transaction of business” within the state through me as their agent.
(Bobbe affirmation dated May 8, 1981, H 5; emphasis his.) Whether or not Mayes thereby abandoned any argument that the defendants had transacted business in New York “in person,” we find the “in person” argument nonmeritorious.
Modern jurisprudence regarding a state’s power to exercise in personam jurisdiction over persons not found within the state dates back to
International Shoe Co. v. Washington,
As interpreted by the New York Court of Appeals, the jurisdictional net cast by § 302(a)(1) over a nondomiciliary who “in person .. . transacts any business within the state” reaches only a defendant that “ ‘purposefully avails itself of the privilege of conducting activities within [New York], thus invoking the benefits and protections of its laws.’ ”
McKee Electric Co. v. Rauland-Borg Corp.,
In
Parke-Bernet Galleries,
the facts of which have been discussed in part A above, the New York Court of Appeals viewed defendant Franklyn’s actions as sufficient for the invocation of § 302(a)(1). There, Franklyn had initiated the opening of a long-distance line between himself in California and Parke-Bernet in New York. He thereby was able to monitor the auction in New York through the ears of the person assigned to assist him, and he effectively “projected himself into the auction room in order to compete with the other prospective purchasers who were there.”
In
Ehrlich-Bober & Co. v. University of Houston, supra,
the nondomiciliary defendant had, within about a six-month period, initiated 22 separate transactions in New York involying the sale or repurchase of securities with an aggregate value of approximately $44 million. A representative of the defendant had visited the New York office of the plaintiff broker several times and on one such occasion had placed a repurchase order in person. The two transactions that were the subject of suit in New York had been initiated by long-distance telephone from Texas and confirmed by a letter sent from Texas. Without extended discussion, and merely noting its agreement with the Appellate Division, the New York Court of Appeals found that the actions of the defendant university were sufficiently substantial to support long-arm jurisdiction in New York.
The present case presents none of the characteristics of the kind of purposeful activity in New York that is required by the
So far as we are aware, no court has extended § 302(a)(1) to reach a nondomicili-ary who never entered New York, who was solicited outside of New York to perform services outside of New York, who performed outside of New York such services as were performed, and who is alleged to have neglected to perform other services outside of New York. We do not believe that in these circumstances the New York courts would exercise jurisdiction solely on the basis that the defendants, from California, reported to their New York client and sought the wherewithal (i.e., funds, authority, and information) by means of letters and calls to New York to perform their non-New York services. 5
The judgment dismissing the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction over the defendants is affirmed.
Notes
. Levy, Leipziger also moved for dismissal of the action against it under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(5) on the ground that Mayes had failed to effect proper service of process on it. In addition, both defendants asked the court, in the event that the action was not dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, to transfer the action, pursuant to its power under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a) (1976), to the Central District of California as a more convenient venue. The district court found it unnecessary to reach these contentions and we likewise need not reach them.
.
Glassman
was an action by the broker against the owners. New York law appears to hold that an agent cannot predicate the court’s long-arm jurisdiction over his principal solely on his own activities as agent within the state.
See Haar v. Amendoris Corp.,
. When the question of jurisdiction is determined by the district court on the basis of affidavits and documentary material the plaintiff need only make a prima facie showing of jurisdiction in order to defeat, temporarily, a motion to dismiss.
Marine Midland Bank, N. A. v. Miller,
.
China Union Lines v. American Marine Underwriters, supra, is
somewhat similar. There the defendant, a Canadian insurer who never entered New York, allegedly agreed with a New York insurance broker to insure a Chinese corporation. In addition to the telephone calls, letters and telexes between the defendant in Canada and the broker in New York, the parties agreed, “significant[ly],”
. Since we conclude that § 302(a)(1) does not confer jurisdiction over the defendants we need not consider whether if such jurisdiction were conferred it would offend notions of due process.
