100 A.D.2d 405 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1984
Lead Opinion
OPINION OF THE COURT
Plaintiffs, Puerto Rican migrant farm workers and members of their families, seek in these actions to enforce default judgments entered in Puerto Rico against defendants, who are apple growers located in New York State. The Puerto Rican default judgments grew out of the 1978 apple harvest season in New York. In the spring of that
The Wagner-Peyser Act, among other things, established the United States Employment Services “[i]n order to promote the establishment and maintenance of a national system of public employment offices” (US Code, tit 29, § 49). Pursuant to the authority conferred by the Wagner-Peyser Act, the United States Secretary of Labor has established an interstate clearance system to “provide employers a means of recruiting nonlocal workers, when the supply of local workers is inadequate” (Snapp & Son v Puerto Rico, 458 US 592, 595; see, also, 20 CFR 602.1 [c]). If local workers are not available, a “clearance order” is sent through the Employment and Training Administration of the Department of Labor to other State labor agencies in order to give them an opportunity to meet the request.
As detailed by the United States Supreme Court in Snapp & Son v Puerto Rico (supra), some of defendants’ obligations under the Wagner-Peyser Act come from the Immigration and Nationality Act which regulates the admission of nonimmigrant aliens into the United States. This act authorizes the admission of temporary foreign workers into this country only “if unemployed persons capable of performing such service or labor cannot be found in this country” (US Code, tit 8, § 1101, subd [a], par [15], cl [H], subcl [ii]). The initial responsibility for determining whether enough qualified United States workers are available to fill a need is vested with the United States Secretary of Labor (see Snapp & Son v Puerto Rico, supra, p 595).
Defendants, who desired to employ temporary foreign agricultural laborers, were, therefore, required to initially seek domestic workers through the interstate clearance system. Defendants were thus directed to file an application with the local (Kingston) office of the New York State Employment Service, together with a sample job offer (20 CFR 655.201 [a] [1]; [b] [1]). According to regulation, a
The clearance orders sent by defendants and the circumstances surrounding the recruitment of workers were apparently all the same.
Subsequently, defendant Altamont was informed that its request for temporary labor certification was being denied in part because a number of Puerto Ricans had accepted its clearance order. Certain Puerto Rican workers then arrived at defendant Altamont’s orchards. Thereafter, however, problems apparently developed and many of the workers returned home. Plaintiffs, the returned workers, together with members of their families in some cases, then commenced the underlying actions in the Superior Courts of Puerto Rico against defendant Altamont and other apple growers and were awarded default judgments for breach of contract and tort claims arising out of the 1978 harvest season. In the present New York State actions, plaintiffs seek to enforce those judgments. Defendant Altamont moved for summary judgment dismissing the action commenced against it upon the ground that the underlying default judgment was void because the Puerto Rican court lacked personal jurisdiction over it. Plaintiffs then cross-moved to consolidate Rios u Altamont Farms with the subject eight other actions and for summary judgment against all defendants. Special Term consolidated all actions, and after concluding that Puerto Rico properly asserted jurisdiction over all defendants, granted summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs. This appeal by defendants ensued.
The Puerto Rican judgments must be given full faith and credit in the courts of New York (Americana of Puerto Rico v Kaplus, 368 F2d 431, 437, cert den 386 US 943) unless the Puerto Rican courts failed to acquire personal jurisdiction over defendants (Durfee v Duke, 375 US 106, 109). Although a judgment may be collaterally attacked because jurisdiction was not proper under the statutes of the forum State (Hunt v Dawson County, Montana, 623 F2d 621), in this case, the Puerto Rican judgments are valid so long as
In order to maintain fairness and interstate federalism (see Braveman, Interstate Federalism and Personal Jurisdiction, 33 Syracuse L Rev 533), due process only permits a State court to render a valid personal judgment against a nonresident defendant if that defendant has sufficient minimum contacts which make subjecting defendant to a suit in that State consistent with “ ‘traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice’ ” (International Shoe Co. v Washington, 326 US 310, 316, quoting Milliken v Meyer, 311 US 457, 463). These contacts must be the result of “some act by which the defendant 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 US 235, 253). This rule “is not susceptible of mechanical application; rather, the facts of each case must be weighed” (Kulko v California Superior Ct., 436 US 84, 92; emphasis added). The factors to be considered in this analysis include: “the burden on the defendant * * * the forum State’s interest in adjudicating the dispute * * * the plaintiff’s interest in obtaining convenient and effective relief * * * the interstate judicial system’s interest in obtaining the most efficient resolution of controversies; and the shared interest of several States in furthering fundamental substantive social policies” (World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v Woodson, 444 US 286, 292).
It appears from the record that defendant apple growers had no contact with the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico other than the fact that their clearance orders, which they had filed with their local employment offices in this State, were forwarded to Puerto Rico at the direction of the
Neizil v Williams (543 F Supp 899), Garcia v Vasquez (524 F Supp 40) and Acker v Hepburn Orchards (US Dist Ct, MD Fla, Nov. 29, 1982, Castagana, J.) are factually distinguishable from the present case, for the more intensive and direct recruitment efforts by defendants in those cases provided some evidence that defendants therein purposefully availed themselves of the privilege of conducting activities within the forum State.
That portion of plaintiffs’ cross motion seeking summary judgment should, therefore, have been denied and summary judgment should have been granted in favor of all defendants dismissing the complaints.
. This regulation was contained in 20 CFR 653.108 in 1978.
. As used in the Wagner-Peyser Act, the word “State” includes Puerto Rico (US Code, tit 29, § 49a, subd 151). It should be noted, however, that when defendant Altamont Farms, Inc., submitted its clearance order in March, 1978, it was informed that said order would not be submitted to Puerto Rico. In August, 1978, when certain statutory problems were resolved, the clearance order was submitted to Puerto Rico.
. Although the record does not contain the clearance orders sent by each defendant, all parties refer to the clearance order sent by defendant Altamont and the recruitment of workers as an example of the facts involving all defendants. It should also be noted that the various actions were consolidated upon plaintiffs’ cross motion. This cross motion was made subsequent to defendant Altamont’s motion for summary judgment in Rios v Altamont Farms. In their motion to consolidate, plaintiffs, who are all represented by the same attorney’s office, assert that all cases present the same legal issue as to jurisdiction.
Dissenting Opinion
As I read the majority’s decision, reliance is placed on three basic points to support a holding that due process was violated when the Puerto Rican courts asserted in personam jurisdiction over defendants in adjudicating plaintiffs’ claims: (1) that defendants did nothing beyond the single isolated act of filing clearance orders in their local State employment offices; the transmittal of the clearance orders to Puerto Rico was purely a result of the operation of the Federal bureaucratic machinery and, hence, was involuntary as to defendants; (2) that the recruitment of farm laborers in Puerto Rico was not for defendants’ benefit because, actually, they wanted to recruit Jamaican workers; and (3) that the activities of Puerto Rican Labor Department officials in recruiting workers cannot be attributed to defendants because they did not execute a designation of hiring authority for the Puerto Rican Labor Department to act as their agent for purposes of hiring. These grounds either fail to fully reflect all of the facts contained in the record or are irrelevant for purposes of determining whether due process was violated here.
The record establishes the following uncontested facts: defendants, all members of a regional apple growers’ association, desired to recruit Jamaican workers to pick apples for the fall, 1978 harvest. However, under the WagnerPeyser Act (US Code, tit 29, § 49 et seq.) and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (US Code, tit 8, § 1101 et seq.), this could not be accomplished without first giving available workers in certain regions of high unemployment in the United States and its territories an opportunity to fill all openings through the procedures of the interstate clearance system. This entailed defendants filing clearance orders with their local State employment offices for transmittal to similar local offices in the designated regions. The orders signed by defendants expressly
Moreover, also in August, 1978, defendants participated through their growers’ association in a suit in the Federal District Court to compel the United States Labor Department and Immigration Service to permit recruitment of foreign workers. In that action, they specifically assured the court that if the ban on foreign workers was lifted, they would still give priority to available Puerto Rican workers. Once defendants’ clearance orders reached Puerto Rico, the following activities took place: first the Commonwealth employment service widely publicized the job offers and recruited workers for over 2,000 harvesting positions in New York and elsewhere. Responding Puerto Rican farm laborers were then screened in two respects, i.e., their commitment to accepting the positions and their suitability, which entailed requiring applicants to submit certificates of good health and of lack of a criminal record. It is also an uncontested fact that the procurement and screening process continued throughout the month of August, 1978. During the course of the recruitment and screening process, defendants were advised of the numbers and names of workers whom they should expect to arrive to fill the requested positions. Services were also provided to expedite their embarkation by plane to the United States. Shortly after arriving at defendants’ orchards in early September, however, the recruited workers were discharged. This happened to coincide with the successful conclusion of defendants’ Federal action seeking relief
It is upon the totality of the foregoing facts and not selective elements thereof that the due process issue must be determined. As the majority correctly notes, the basic test deciding whether a forum State can exercise extraterritorial in personam jurisdiction is derived from the test set forth in International Shoe Co. v Washington (326 US 310, 316) that due process requires sufficient “minimum contacts” which make subjecting defendant to a suit in that State consistent with “traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice”. Subsequent cases make clear that each of the two parts of the test are independently significant and must be weighed and balanced (see, generally, World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v Woodson, 444 US 286, 291-294).
The minimum contacts element of the test primarily centers on whether a defendant engaged in activities in the forum State by virtue of which he “purposely” availed himself of the benefits and protection of the laws of that State (World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v Woodson, supra, p 295; Hanson v Denckla, 357 US 235, 253). It is now settled, however, that the requisite minimum contacts can be established without the defendant having ever physically entered or acted in the forum State; the test can be satisfied solely through a defendant’s communications to that State (McGee v International Life Ins. Co., 355 US 220,222-223; see, also, Parke-Bernet Galleries v Franklyn, 26 NY2d 13). The minimum contacts requirement is also significantly more easily met when the suit arises out of the very activities brought about by the defendant in the forum State (see McGee v International Life Ins. Co., supra, p 223; International Shoe Co. v Washington, supra, p 321; Thompson v Ecological Science Corp., 421 F2d 467, 470). As applied to contract litigation, such as the cases at bar, it has been held that due process is satisfied if the suit arises out of a contract which had a “substantial connection” with
The second facet of the International Shoe Co. test, i.e., whether maintenance of the suit offends notions of fair play and substantial justice, deals with equity and policy considerations. It requires inquiry directed toward the relative burdens placed upon the plaintiff and defendant if each were compelled to litigate their dispute in the other party’s home jurisdiction and whether the forum State has a legitimate interest in adjudicating the dispute (World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v Woodson, supra, p 292).
Measured by all of the foregoing criteria, I have no difficulty in finding that defendants’ activities constituted sufficient minimum contacts with Puerto Rico to subject them to breach of contract suits there, completely consistent with fair play and substantial justice. To begin with, defendants’ clearance orders represented formal offers to contract with responding workers, containing all the essential terms and conditions of employment, including rates of pay, the date work was to begin and even provisions for financing transportation of the workers from the place of recruitment to the work sites. The orders, signed by each defendant, state “this job offer describes the ACTUAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE EMPLOYMENT BEING OFFERED BY ME AND CONTAINS ALL OF THE MATERIAL TERMS and conditions of the job” (emphasis added). Clearance orders have been so construed by the Federal courts (Aguero v Christopher, 481 F Supp 1272, 1274; Aguero v Usery, US Dist Ct, SD Tex, May 2, 1976, Garza, J.).
The record equally belies any contention that the activities of the Puerto Rican Labor Department were not for defendants’ benefit. If, as the majority suggests, defendants’ ulterior motive here was always to circumvent requirements of the Federal Immigration and Nationality Act so as to be able to recruit Jamaicans, the plain and unavoidable fact is that the recruitment process in Puerto Rico had to take place in order for defendants to accomplish their ultimate objective. This alone, in my view, dispels any inference that the recruitment process was not at least partially for the benefit and at the behest of these defendants. Indeed, certain of the activities performed by Puerto Rican governmental authorities were exclusively for defendants’ benefit. The screening of laborers’ health and police records can hardly be considered to have been in the interest of anyone but defendants. Likewise, under the terms of the clearance orders defendants were liable for the workers’ transportation expenses, to be paid either by advancing funds or reimbursing amounts spent by the workers or the Puerto Rican Government for that purpose. Therefore, when government agents arranged transportation, they aided defendants in discharging that contractual obligation.
Examination of the entire transaction involving the employment contracts on which plaintiffs’ suits are based also demonstrates the existence of a “substantial connection” with the forum State sufficient to satisfy due process. The offers to contract were physically delivered and distributed in Puerto Rico. Arguably, the offers were accepted there when plaintiffs made commitments to fill the harvesting positions, so that formation of the contracts was completed in Puerto Rico. At the least, significant preliminary steps leading to contract formation took place in Puerto Rico, including the performance of various conditions that defendants stipulated for in the clearance orders. These preliminary steps, including the making of commitments, obtaining medical and police clearances, advancing the costs of air transport and actual embarkation, constituted either part performance or foreseeable detrimental action in reliance so as to have made defendants’ offers irrevocable and legally binding before any plaintiff set foot in New York (see 1 Corbin, Contracts, §§ 49, 51). Puerto
Plaintiffs’ case for valid jurisdiction is even more easily made when it is considered in terms of its consistency with traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice, the balance of the International Shoe Co. test. Indeed, on the basis of comparing the relative burdens of litigation in a foreign jurisdiction and assessing the forum State’s interest in the litigation, it more aptly might be said that fair play and justice demand that plaintiffs be permitted validly to litigate their claims in their home forum. Plaintiffs here are impoverished, English-illiterate farm workers. Economic and logistical realities render them totally incapable of obtaining legal redress for their complaints in the courts of New York. Defendants, on the other hand, are ongoing business entities. They have already demonstrated their willingness to act collectively and share the costs of litigation in the Federal courts, as well as in the New York courts in the matter now before us. It may reasonably be assumed that the common defense to all of the claims asserted by these plaintiffs would basically entail testimony from a few supervisory employees concerning defendants’ justification for discharging plaintiffs. Imposing the burden of producing such witnesses in Puerto Rico hardly amounts to a denial of due process, when a converse ruling effectively would confer total immunity from suit upon defendants (see McGee v International Life
For all of the foregoing reasons, I vote in favor of upholding the jurisdiction of the only forum where these plaintiffs can obtain a just determination of their causes — the courts of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
Mahoney, P. J., Casey and Weiss, JJ., concur with Kane, J.; Levine, J., dissents in an opinion.
Order and judgment modified, on the law, by reversing so much thereof as granted plaintiffs’ cross motion for summary judgment; cross motion for summary judgment denied and summary judgment awarded to defendants dismissing the complaints; and, as so modified, affirmed, without costs.