United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 07-2272
FRANCIS HANNON,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
RAYMOND COOK; SEAN MILLIKEN; WAYNE D. CROSBY; LAWRENCE M.
MCARTHUR; KEVIN KING; HENRY LAPLANTE; WILLIAM WHITE;
CHRISTOPHER DEMARCO; ANGEL PIMENTAL; JOSEPH LODICO;
STEVEN BALSAVICH; and EDWARD KEITH,
Plaintiffs,
v.
JEFFREY BEARD and MARYJANE HESSE,
Defendants, Appellees,
MICHAEL T. MALONEY; PETER ALLEN; KRISTIE LADOUCEUR;
KENNETH DEORSEY; PAUL DUFORD; JEFFREY GRIMES; RICHARD MEDEIROS;
GILBERT LEMON, II; JOHN DOES 1-50; CLARK COLOR LAB;
VINCENT MOONEY; MASSACHUSETTS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS;
FREDERICK CALLENDAR; RICHARD MCARTHUR; JAMES SULLIVAN;
GARY FYFE; ROBERT KOLBER; and HERBERT BERGER-HERSHKOWITZ,
Defendants.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. Rya W. Zobel, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Torruella, Circuit Judge,
Wallace,* Senior Circuit Judge,
and Lipez, Circuit Judge.
*
Of the Ninth Circuit, sitting by designation.
Matthew J. Matule, with whom David S. Clancy and Christopher
G. Clark, was on brief for appellant Hannon.
Claudia M. Tesoro, Senior Deputy Attorney General, with whom
Thomas W. Corbett, Jr., Attorney General, Calvin R. Koons, Senior
Deputy Attorney General, and John G. Knorr, III, Chief Deputy
Attorney General, Chief, Appellate Litigation Section, was on brief
for appellees Beard and Hesse.
April 28, 2008
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WALLACE, Senior Circuit Judge. Francis Hannon appeals
from the district court’s final order dismissing his claims against
Jeffrey Beard and Maryjane Hesse for lack of personal jurisdiction.
We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We affirm in
part and reverse and remand in part.
I.
Hannon’s claims against Beard and Hesse are part of a
multi-party, multi-claim lawsuit filed in the district court for
the District of Massachusetts. Hannon and his fellow plaintiffs,
all prisoners in Massachusetts, alleged various federal and state
constitutional violations against numerous defendants, most of whom
were officials in the Massachusetts Department of Corrections
(DOC). However, Hannon, who was convicted in Pennsylvania and has
spent most of his prison time there, also included a claim against
Beard and Hesse, who were officials in the Pennsylvania DOC during
the time periods relevant to this action.
Since his 1978 conviction and incarceration in
Pennsylvania, Hannon has been the quintessential “jailhouse
lawyer,” pursuing post-conviction relief and filing numerous
grievances and lawsuits on behalf of himself and other prisoners
challenging their conditions of confinement. Hannon estimates that
he has represented “thousands” of his fellow inmates in
proceedings. He alleges that the Pennsylvania DOC grew tired of
his lawsuits and agitation and, in order to prevent him from filing
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more lawsuits and in retaliation for the actions he had already
taken, began a strategy of transferring him to out-of-state
prisons.
Transfers of state prisoners to prisons in other states
are effected pursuant to the Interstate Corrections Compact
(Compact), which generally permits states to contract for one
state’s incarceration of another state’s convicts in consideration
for payment. Pursuant to the Compact, Hannon was transferred in
1997 to a District of Columbia prison and, in the first several
months of 2001, was transferred to another District of Columbia
prison, two different Maryland prisons, and eventually back to
Pennsylvania. In December of 2001, he was transferred from
Pennsylvania to Massachusetts. Hannon alleges that his legal
materials “disappeared” during the transfer to Massachusetts.
Hannon asserts that the decision to transfer him to
Massachusetts was authorized and directed by Beard, the Secretary
of the Pennsylvania DOC, in retaliation for Hannon’s lawsuits
against DOC officers. Hannon states that this fact was confirmed
by prison personnel with whom he spoke. Though Beard asserted that
he has not been involved with Hannon subsequent to the transfer, he
did not deny involvement leading up to the transfer.
Once in Massachusetts, Hannon sent a number of letters to
Hesse, a Pennsylvania DOC prison librarian, requesting legal
materials. She responded several times, sometimes denying his
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requests and sometimes sending requested material either to him or
to a prison librarian in Massachusetts. At times, she sought legal
counsel’s advice to determine whether she was required to send the
requested materials. She states that every time she denied a
request for material, it was because legal counsel had advised her
that she was not required to supply Hannon with it.
In 2003, Hannon filed a complaint against Beard and
Hesse, as well as against numerous Massachusetts prison officials,
in the Massachusetts district court. His claims against Beard and
Hesse allege that they violated his First and Fourteenth Amendment
rights and his rights under Articles XI and XII of the
Massachusetts Declaration of Rights by transferring him between
prisons, confiscating his legal materials, and refusing to provide
him with requested legal materials.
In January 2007, after he filed this action, Hannon
learned that he was to be transferred yet again. His emergency
motion for a temporary restraining order enjoining the transfer was
denied, and this was affirmed by us on appeal. He was transferred
to New Jersey.
Beard and Hesse filed a motion to dismiss, arguing, among
other things, that the Massachusetts district court lacked personal
jurisdiction over them. On June 26, 2007, the district court
granted the motion and dismissed Hannon’s claims against Hesse and
Beard for lack of personal jurisdiction. The court reasoned that
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the long-arm statute did not reach Hesse or Beard because they did
not “transact business” within Massachusetts: “The decision to
transfer plaintiff and confiscate legal materials all occurred in
Pennsylvania where the Pennsylvania defendants reside.” The
district court concluded that a transfer pursuant to the Compact
does not alone constitute the transaction of business in
Massachusetts. Because the district court dismissed for lack of
jurisdiction, it did not reach any of the other grounds for
dismissal argued in Beard and Hesse’s motion to dismiss. Several
of Hannon’s claims against other defendants, as well as other
plaintiffs’ claims, survived motions to dismiss. Final judgment on
the dismissal of the claims against Beard and Hesse was entered
pursuant to Hannon’s Rule 54(b) motion, and Hannon timely appealed.
II.
It is axiomatic that, “[t]o hear a case, a court must
have personal jurisdiction over the parties, ‘that is, the power to
require the parties to obey its decrees.’” Daynard v. Ness,
Motley, Loadholt, Richardson, & Poole, P.A., 290 F.3d 42, 50 (1st
Cir. 2002) (quoting United States v. Swiss Am. Bank, Ltd., 191 F.3d
30, 35 (1st Cir. 1999)). “The plaintiff bears the burden of
proving the court’s personal jurisdiction over a defendant.”
Daynard, 290 F.3d at 50. Under the prima facie standard, which the
district court applied, we “accept the plaintiff’s (properly
documented) evidentiary proffers as true,” and construe those facts
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“in the light most congenial to the plaintiff’s jurisdictional
claim.” Id. at 51 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
We review the district court’s application of this standard de
novo. Id.
Hannon has not alleged that Beard or Hesse “has engaged
in continuous and systematic activity” in Massachusetts; so, in the
absence of general jurisdiction, the court’s power will depend upon
the existence of specific jurisdiction. See id. at 51. “Specific
jurisdiction exists when there is a demonstrable nexus between a
plaintiff’s claims and a defendant’s forum-based activities, such
as when the litigation itself is founded directly on those
activities.” Mass. Sch. of Law at Andover, Inc. v. Am. Bar Ass’n,
142 F.3d 26, 34 (1st Cir. 1998). Furthermore, to establish
personal jurisdiction, Hannon must show that “the Massachusetts
long-arm statute grants jurisdiction and, if it does, that the
exercise of jurisdiction under the statute is consistent with the
Constitution.” Daynard, 290 F.3d at 52.
A.
Because we have construed the Massachusetts long-arm
statute to be coextensive with the limits allowed by the United
States Constitution, we often “sidestep the statutory inquiry and
proceed directly to the constitutional analysis.” See id.
However, Hannon’s claim involves Pennsylvania state officials’
exercise of their discretion, rather than a conventional contract
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or tort claim. It would be useful therefore to consider first, as
the district court did, whether the Massachusetts long-arm statute
reaches Beard as the Secretary of the Pennsylvania DOC and Hesse as
a prison librarian for the Pennsylvania DOC. See Stroman Realty,
Inc. v. Wercinski, 513 F.3d 476, 482 (5th Cir. 2008) (reasoning
that, although a long-arm statute was coextensive with the limits
of due process, the statute’s reach warranted consideration first
because the case involved a challenge to a state official rather
than a conventional contract or tort claim).
Hannon’s assertion of personal jurisdiction under the
long-arm statute is based on the portion of that statute providing
that “[a] court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a person,
who acts directly or by an agent, as to a cause of action in law or
equity arising from the person’s transacting any business in this
commonwealth.” Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 223A, § 3(a). That provision
“should be construed broadly,” and “does not require that the
defendant have engaged in commercial activity. [The] language is
general and applies to any purposeful acts by an individual,
whether personal, private, or commercial.” Ealing Corp. v. Harrods
Ltd., 790 F.2d 978, 982 (1st Cir. 1986) (internal quotation marks
omitted). Physical presence in Massachusetts is not required in
order to “transact business” in Massachusetts. Fairview Mach. &
Tool Co., Inc. v. Oakbrook Int’l, Inc., 56 F. Supp. 2d 134, 137 (D.
Mass. 1999). For example, in Hahn v. Vermont Law School, we held
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that a law school “transacted business” in Massachusetts when, at
plaintiff’s request, it mailed application information to him in
Massachusetts and later mailed him an offer of admission. 698 F.2d
48, 49 (1st Cir. 1983). We reasoned that “[t]he purposeful actions
of [Vermont Law School] in mailing to [plaintiff] in Massachusetts
application information and an acceptance letter were sufficient,
without more, to constitute transacting business under the broadly
construed Massachusetts long-arm statute.” Id. at 51. Though the
mailing of the application and offer of admission were not
substantial contacts, we emphasized that “less is required to
support jurisdiction when the cause of action arises from the
defendant’s contacts with the forum . . . than when it does not.”
Id.
To support jurisdiction in this case, Hannon alleges that
Beard “authorized, directed, and/or effected” his transfer from the
Pennsylvania DOC to the Massachusetts DOC pursuant to the Compact.
The Compact creates a five-year agreement between the states, and
outlines the specific procedures for transferring inmates.
According to the terms of the Compact, Pennsylvania was required to
send an application to Massachusetts requesting to transfer Hannon,
arrange and pay for Hannon’s transportation to a Massachusetts
institution, transfer funds owed to Hannon to Massachusetts,
furnish documents and provide legal advice as necessary to
Massachusetts, pre-authorize and pay for Hannon’s medical,
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psychiatric, and dental care or treatment in Massachusetts, and
authorize Hannon’s security classification, among other things.
Massachusetts, in turn, was obligated to make regular reports to
Pennsylvania on Hannon’s conduct. See 61 P.S. § 1062; Mass. Gen.
Law ch. 125 App., § 2-1. In sum, as Hannon alleges, when Beard
arranged for the transfer between the Pennsylvania DOC and the
Massachusetts DOC pursuant to an existing, on-going contract
between the two, he “caused extensive services to be rendered in
Massachusetts, caused payment to be made in Massachusetts, and
procured the application of Massachusetts law to [] Hannon’s future
conduct.”
The contacts that Beard would have had to make to arrange
for Hannon’s transfer from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts are
sufficient to constitute “transacting business” under the broadly-
construed long-arm statute. The district court erred when it
reasoned that because “[t]he decision to transfer plaintiff . . .
occurred in Pennsylvania,” it lacked jurisdiction over Beard. A
defendant need not have been physically present in the forum state
in order to have “transacted business” there. See Fairview Mach.,
56 F. Supp. 2d at 138. Just as mailing a letter and an offer of
admission to Massachusetts was “transacting business” in Hahn, see
698 F.2d at 51, so can actions arranging for the transfer of Hannon
to Massachusetts, which necessarily involved at least some
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communication and interaction between Beard in Pennsylvania and his
counterparts in Massachusetts.
That Beard’s actions were not “commercial” is not
relevant, see Ealing Corp., 790 F.2d at 982, nor is the fact that
he was a state official. Beard’s citation to the Fifth Circuit’s
decision in Stroman Realty does not help him. That case was filed
in Texas and involved a challenge to an Arizona government
official’s enforcement of Arizona law in Arizona; the action
attacked the validity of that law. See Stroman Realty, 513 F.3d at
481. By contrast, Hannon does not challenge the laws that permit
a transfer, but rather alleges that Beard initiated the transfer in
retaliation for and in order to hinder Hannon’s exercise of
constitutional rights.
Beard cites no case that suggests that prison officials
cannot be subject to personal jurisdiction in a foreign state
merely because they are state officials. Certainly, there are
constitutional limitations on a plaintiff’s ability to hale a
prison official into another state, which we address shortly.
Under these circumstances, though, we hold that Beard “transacted
business” in Massachusetts for purposes of the state’s long-arm
statute, particularly because the contacts Hannon alleges form the
basis for Hannon’s claim against Beard.
Hannon’s jurisdictional case for Hesse is far less
persuasive. Hannon bases his argument on Hesse’s responses to a
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number of written requests for legal materials that he sent to her
from a Massachusetts prison. At least twice Hesse sent requested
materials to a Massachusetts prison librarian (and so advised
Hannon), about six times she denied Hannon’s requests after
receiving advice from legal counsel that she was not obligated to
send the materials, and three times she directly sent Hannon the
requested material.
These limited interactions do not constitute "transacting
business" under the Massachusetts long-arm statute. Hesse did not
initiate contact with Hannon, and she did not purposefully direct
any action toward Massachusetts. She had nothing to do with
Hannon’s transfer there, and it was merely incidental that she sent
replies to Massachusetts because that was where he happened to have
been transferred. Our cases make clear that contacts with the
forum state must be “purposeful” in order to constitute the
transaction of business. See Ealing Corp., 790 F.2d at 982.
Hesse’s responses to Hannon’s letters were not purposeful contacts
with Massachusetts. We therefore hold that the district court did
not err when it dismissed Hannon’s claim against Hesse for lack of
personal jurisdiction because the Massachusetts long-arm statute
does not authorize personal jurisdiction over Hesse.
B.
Having determined that the Massachusetts long-arm statute
permits jurisdiction over Beard, we must decide whether asserting
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jurisdiction over him would comport with the requirements of due
process. “In the personal jurisdiction context, we have
characterized compliance with the Constitution as implicating three
distinct components, namely, relatedness, purposeful availment
(sometimes called ‘minimum contacts’), and reasonableness.” See
Mass. Sch. of Law, 142 F.3d at 35 (internal quotation marks and
citation omitted).
1.
The first step to achieving personal jurisdiction is that
“a claim must arise out of, or be related to, the defendant’s in-
forum activities.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation
omitted). The relatedness standard is flexible and “focuses on the
nexus between the defendant’s contacts and the plaintiff’s cause of
action.” Adelson v. Hananel, 510 F.3d 43, 49 (1st Cir. 2007)
(internal quotation marks and citation omitted). In typical tort
claims, our inquiry is “whether the plaintiff has established cause
in fact (i.e., the injury would not have occurred but for the
defendant’s forum-state activity) and legal cause (i.e., the
defendant’s in-state conduct gave birth to the cause of action).”
Mass. Sch. of Law, 142 F.3d at 35 (internal quotation marks and
citation omitted). Although Hannon alleges a constitutional claim,
section 1983 claims have been analogized to tort claims for
personal jurisdiction analysis. See, e.g., Stroman Realty, 513
F.3d at 483 (“It also seems normally accurate to describe as torts
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. . . § 1983 suits against public officials for individual
misconduct”).
Though the relatedness standard has been described as the
least developed part of the due process standard, see, e.g., Swiss
Am. Bank, Ltd., 274 F.3d at 621, it seems clear that Hannon’s
claims against Beard arise from Beard’s voluntary contacts with
Massachusetts. Hannon alleges that Beard ordered him transferred
among numerous facilities along the East Coast, including
Massachusetts, in retaliation for his numerous lawsuits against the
Pennsylvania DOC on behalf of himself and on behalf of other
prisoners. Beard’s contacts with Massachusetts in arranging for
Hannon’s transfer are therefore directly related to Hannon’s
retaliation claim, which is based on the transfer itself. Hannon’s
alleged constitutional injury would not have occurred “but for”
Beard’s arrangement for his transfer.
That Hannon was not a party to the Compact or
arrangements made between Beard and Massachusetts is not relevant
to this relatedness analysis. Though it was not argued in the
briefs, Beard’s counsel at oral argument stressed that, because
Hannon was not a party to the Compact between Pennsylvania and
Massachusetts, the Compact and any arrangements made pursuant to it
cannot be used by Hannon to assert jurisdiction over Beard.
Indeed, Article XXXII of the Intergovernmental Agreement for the
Implementation of the Compact restricts any rights under the
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agreement to the state parties. However, Beard provided no case
law for the proposition that only a party to a contract can use the
contract as a basis for asserting personal jurisdiction over
another party to the contract, and we conclude that the proposition
is unsound as applied to this situation. First, the relatedness
requirement focuses on the nexus between the plaintiff’s claim and
the defendant’s contacts with the forum state, not on the
relationship between the plaintiff and defendant. See Sawtelle v.
Farrell, 70 F.3d 1381, 1389 (1st Cir. 1995). This suggests it does
not matter that the Compact was not between Hannon and Beard, but
only that it established ties between Beard and Massachusetts, and
that it formed the basis of Hannon’s complaint.
Second, Hannon’s claim is not for breach of contract. He
does not argue that his treatment in Massachusetts or even that the
transfer to Massachusetts violated the Compact. Rather, Hannon
raises a constitutional claim, arguing that the transfer was in
retaliation for his exercise of constitutional rights. This claim
is more analogous to a tort claim than a contract claim for
jurisdictional purposes, see Stroman Realty, 513 F.3d at 483, and
tort claims are different than contract claims for relatedness
purposes. Thus, our analysis must focus on whether Beard’s actions
in transferring Hannon to Massachusetts caused Hannon’s injury,
rather than on the contractual relationship (or lack thereof)
between the two.
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Finally, we stress that Hannon’s claim based on the
unconstitutionality of the transfer itself is critical to our
analysis. One of Beard’s principal arguments against asserting
personal jurisdiction on the basis of participation in the Compact
is that it would subject Beard and his counterparts across the
country to lawsuits in every state that is a party to the Compact.
While we understand his concern, our decision ought not have this
affect. Several district courts have declined to exercise personal
jurisdiction over out-of-state defendants when prisoners
transferred pursuant to the Compact sue their former prison
officials in foreign states. See, e.g., Ibrahim v. Dist. of
Columbia, 357 F. Supp. 2d 187, 192-93 (D.D.C. 2004); Meyer v.
Federal Bureau of Prisons, 940 F. Supp. 9, 12 (D.D.C. 1996); see
also Hannon v. Beard, No. 02-1779 (D.D.C. Sept. 26, 2003), aff’d,
No. 03-7145, 2005 WL 18052 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 4, 2005). Our holding
is not in conflict with those decisions. In those cases, the
prisoners sued officials from the sending state for harms that
occurred while the prisoner was in the sending state, and attempted
to use the contacts of the Compact to assert jurisdiction.
According to the reasoning of our holding, those claims would not
survive the relatedness inquiry because the alleged contacts (the
transfer pursuant to the Compact) are not related to the alleged
harm (treatment in the sending state). This case turns on the
unique factual situation wherein the harm alleged was directly tied
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to the contacts establishing personal jurisdiction. It is not a
free ticket for personal jurisdiction in receiving states over any
prison officials who are parties to the Compact. But here, because
Hannon’s claim arises directly from Beard’s contacts with
Massachusetts, the claim is sufficiently related under the due
process standard. In short, our opinion gives no assistance for a
transferred prisoner to assert a claim in the transferee court
against the transferor DOC based on pre-transfer grievances.
2.
That a defendant’s forum-state contacts are related to a
plaintiff’s claims is not enough to justify an assertion of
personal jurisdiction. The defendant’s contacts must also
“represent a purposeful availment of the privilege of conducting
activities in the forum state, thereby invoking the benefits and
protections of that state’s laws and making the defendant’s
presence before the state’s courts foreseeable.” Daynard, 290 F.3d
at 60. The purposeful availment requirement “ensures that
jurisdiction is not based on merely random, isolated or fortuitous
contacts with the forum state,” Adelson, 510 F.3d at 50 (internal
quotation marks omitted), and is based upon the “cornerstones [of]
. . . voluntariness and foreseeability,” Daynard, 290 F.3d at 61.
This means that “[t]he contacts must be voluntary and not based on
the unilateral actions of another party” and “must be such that [a
defendant] could reasonably anticipate being haled into court
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there.” Adelson, 510 F.3d at 50 (internal quotation marks and
citations omitted). “Even if a defendant’s contacts with the forum
are deemed voluntary, the purposeful availment prong of the
jurisdictional test investigates whether the defendant benefitted
from those contacts in a way that made jurisdiction foreseeable.”
Phillips Exeter Acad. v. Howard Phillips Fund, 196 F.3d 284, 292
(1st Cir. 1999).
Whether Beard’s actions in transferring Hannon from
Pennsylvania to Massachusetts were a purposeful availment of the
privilege of conducting business in Massachusetts is a close
question. But we are convinced that Beard’s contacts with
Massachusetts were not “random, isolated or fortuitous.” See
Adelson, 510 F.3d at 50. According to Hannon’s factual
allegations, Beard intentionally and voluntarily transferred Hannon
out of Pennsylvania and into Massachusetts to rid himself of a
vexatious prisoner and to retaliate against Hannon for his frequent
litigation. In so doing, he made Hannon subject to Massachusetts
law. Arguably, Beard benefitted from subjecting Hannon to
Massachusetts prisons and Massachusetts law by ridding himself of
a troublemaker.
Furthermore, if it is true that Beard’s transfer was made
for unconstitutional reasons, Beard could not only have foreseen
that Hannon would sue him but that Hannon would sue him in
Massachusetts. In fact, the Compact provides that, “The sending
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state and receiving state will cooperate in other matters of mutual
interest in the defense of transfer-related litigation.” That
expressly contemplates the possibility of transfer-related
litigation, and it seems reasonable to expect that the litigation
could occur in either the sending state or the receiving state.
Based on the voluntariness of Beard’s alleged actions and the
foreseeability that the transfer would spur litigation in
Massachusetts, we conclude that Beard purposefully availed himself
of the privilege of doing business in Massachusetts and established
the requisite minimum contacts necessary to satisfy due process
concerns.
3.
Finally, after considering whether a defendant’s contacts
are related to a plaintiff’s claim and whether the defendant
purposefully availed himself of the benefits of doing business in
the forum state, we ask whether asserting personal jurisdiction
would be reasonable. The factors we examine to consider
reasonableness are: “(1) the defendant’s burden of appearing, (2)
the forum state’s interest in adjudicating the dispute, (3) the
plaintiff’s interest in obtaining convenient and effective relief,
(4) the judicial system’s interest in obtaining the most effective
resolution of the controversy, and (5) the common interests of all
sovereigns in promoting substantive social policies.” Id. at 51.
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First, Beard has not shown an unusual hardship would
result from having to appear in Massachusetts. It is true that
appearing in Massachusetts is more burdensome for Beard than
appearing in Pennsylvania. However, “staging a defense in a
foreign jurisdiction is almost always inconvenient and/or costly,”
so “this factor is only meaningful where a party can demonstrate
some kind of special or unusual burden.” See Pritzker v. Yari, 42
F.3d 53, 64 (1st Cir. 1994) (holding that travel between New York
and Puerto Rico was not an unusual burden for a defendant). Beard
gives no reason why appearing in Massachusetts would be a special
burden beyond ordinary inconvenience, so this factor weighs in
favor of asserting personal jurisdiction.
Second, Massachusetts may have an interest in
adjudicating this dispute. Hannon argues that Massachusetts has a
significant interest in ensuring that out-of-state defendants do
not retaliate against unwanted prisoners by casting them into
Massachusetts. This may be true. Massachusetts may not want
prisoners sent to its prisons in retaliation for their exercise of
constitutional rights, so it has some interest in adjudicating the
dispute.
Third, Hannon has some interest in litigating in
Massachusetts to obtain convenient and effective relief. This
court “has repeatedly observed that a plaintiff’s choice of forum
must be accorded a degree of deference with respect to the issue of
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its own convenience.” Sawtelle, 70 F.3d at 1395. At the time this
action was filed and the district court dismissed Hannon’s claims
against Beard and Hesse, Hannon was incarcerated in Massachusetts.
Over his objection, he has since been transferred to New Jersey.
However, he still has legal counsel in Massachusetts, where the
rest of this action is being litigated. He therefore maintains a
valid interest in litigating his claims in Massachusetts, and we
owe some deference to his choice of forum.
Fourth, litigating this issue in Massachusetts would
promote the judicial system’s interest in obtaining the most
effective resolution of the controversy. Hannon has an attorney in
Massachusetts and this case has been litigated in Massachusetts for
several years already. Changing venue at this point may entail
substantial judicial resources and it may be most effective to keep
the action in Massachusetts. There is no reason that the
Massachusetts court cannot effectively resolve a dispute between
Hannon and Beard.
Finally, the interests of all sovereigns in promoting
substantive social policies may weigh slightly in Hannon’s favor.
The substantive social policy, that transfers pursuant to the
Compact should not be effected for illegal or retaliatory purposes,
suggests that this issue could be litigated in Massachusetts.
However, this factor does not weigh particularly in Hannon’s favor
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because the same interest would be served in a Pennsylvania
district court.
Overall, the reasonableness factors weigh in Hannon’s
favor. Therefore, because Hannon’s claims are related to Beard’s
contacts, and Beard purposefully availed himself of the privilege
of doing business in Massachusetts, we hold that it would not
offend due process to assert personal jurisdiction over Beard.
III.
Because an assertion of personal jurisdiction over Beard
is authorized by the Massachusetts long-arm statute, and because it
comports with constitutional due process, we reverse the district
court’s order dismissing Hannon’s claims against Beard for lack of
personal jurisdiction and remand for further proceedings. However,
we affirm the district court’s dismissal of Hannon’s claim against
Hesse because the Massachusetts long-arm statute does not permit an
assertion of personal jurisdiction over her.
REVERSED AND REMANDED IN PART, AFFIRMED IN PART. Each
party should bear its own costs.
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Hannon v. Beard
Court: Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
Date filed: 2008-04-28
Citations: 524 F.3d 275
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