RONALD W. GILLINS AND SHIRLEY GILLINS, APPELLANTS,
v.
TROTWOOD CORPORATION, APPELLEE

Fla. 5th DCA | 1996-11-08
No. 96-100
W. SHARP and THOMPSON, JJ., concur.
682 So. 2d 693 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fifth District (1996) Positive Treatment
Cited by 3 cases

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.

Synopsis

The Fifth District Court of Appeal reversed a trial court's order dismissing for lack of personal jurisdiction over Trotwood Corporation, an Ohio manufacturer. The court held that by specially manufacturing equipment with knowledge of its intended destination in Florida, Trotwood established sufficient minimum contacts with Florida to support jurisdiction in a products liability action arising from alleged defects in that equipment.


Holding

The court held that by undertaking to specially manufacture equipment with knowledge of its intended destination in a particular state, a manufacturer purposefully creates sufficient contacts with that state to support in personam jurisdiction in cases where alleged defects in the product cause injury there.


Headnotes

[1] A manufacturer may be subject to personal jurisdiction in a state if it purposefully creates a connection with that state by specially manufacturing equipment knowing its…

[2] A court may exercise jurisdiction over a foreign corporation that manufactures a product for a Florida customer, knowing the product is destined for use in Florida, if th…

Previewing 2 of 3 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Key Quotes

“by undertaking to specially manufacture equipment knowing its intended destination is a certain state, the manufacturer purposefully creates a connection with that state substantial enough to support in personam jurisdiction in a case where an alleged defect in the product causes injury”

States the controlling legal principle for personal jurisdiction based on purposeful availment through special manufacture

Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Facts & Procedural History

Trotwood Corporation, an Ohio company, designed and manufactured a horizontal coating machine for Price Brothers Company over a six-month period in 19…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
GRIFFIN, Judge.

GRIFFIN, Judge.

This is an appeal of a non-final order granting a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. Because we conclude the facts establish the requisite “minimum contacts” with Florida, we reverse.

Trotwood Corporation [“Trotwood”] is a small Ohio company engaged in the business of designing and manufacturing specialty equipment. In late 1984 and early 1985, over an approximate six month period, Trotwood designed and manufactured a “horizontal coating machine” for Price Brothers Company [“Price Brothers”] for use in coating metal pipes with concrete. This is a “major” piece of machinery, costing $247,625. Although they dealt with the Price Brothers’ Dayton, Ohio, office, Trotwood was aware that the machine was destined for Price Brothers’ Palatka, Florida, facility. Trot-wood placed the machine on flatbed trucks at their plant and Price Brothers shipped the machine to Palatka, Florida.

Ronald W. Gillins, one of two plaintiffs below, was employed by Price Brothers in its Palatka plant. He allegedly sustained injuries when the horizontal coating machine unexpectedly rolled over on his lower extremities. He and his wife, Shirley, brought an action in negligence and strict liability against Trotwood in Putnam County.1

Trotwood moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction, contending that it lacked sufficient minimum contacts with the state of Florida to subject it to jurisdiction in this state. Affidavits and depositions submitted in support of the motion show that Trot-wood is an Ohio corporation with its sole office and only place of business in Trotwood, Ohio. The company is not authorized to do business in Florida, does not solicit business in Florida and has no office or agent for service of process in this state. Trotwood also owns no real or personal property located in the State of Florida.

Trotwood concedes that the complaint alleges contacts sufficient to meet the requirements of Florida’s long-arm statute in that Trotwood is alleged to have caused personal injuries within the state. However, Trot-wood argued that it could not be subjected to jurisdiction in this state because of federal due process requirements. The Gillins urge that Trotwood is subject to jurisdiction in this state because it manufactured a machine which ⅛ knew was destined to be used in Florida. It appears that the reasoning of the court found in Johnson v. Goodyear S.A. Colmar Berg, 716 F.Supp. 531 (D.Kan.1989) on the federal due process issue is applicable here.2 In Johnson, a Luxembourg corporation manufactured a tire-making machine on a special order basis, knowing that it was to be placed in its customer’s facility in Topeka. When it caused injury there, jurisdiction was held to be proper in Kansas. The controlling principle appears to be that by undertaking to specially manufacture equipment knowing its intended destination is a certain state, the manufacturer purposefully creates a connection with that state substantial enough to support in personam jurisdiction in a case where an alleged defect in the product causes injury. Accordingly, we reverse the order of no jurisdiction and remand.

REVERSED and REMANDED.

W. SHARP and THOMPSON, JJ., concur. . The complaint also named Diversified Design Technology ["Diversified”] as a defendant. Diversified is a foreign corporation which prepared design drawings for Trotwood which were used to manufacture the machine. Diversified is not involved in this appeal.

. See also Redwine v. Franz Plasser Bahnbaumas-chinen Industriegesellschaft, 794 F.Supp. 1062 (D.Kan.1992).


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • Shyam Ahuja Private v. Garden Islands Int'l, LLC, 118 So. 3d 268 (Fla. 3d DCA 2013)
    …tances,’ a manufacturer who sells a product in Florida cannot rea [*269] sonably contend that it should not reasonably foresee being haled into a Florida court in the event of a dispute over the quality of that product.”); Gillins v. Trotwood Corp., 682 So. 2d 693, 694 (Fla. 5th DCA 1996) (“[B]y undertaking to specially manufacture equipment knowing its intended destination is a certain state, the manufacturer purposefully creates a connection with that state substantial enough to support in personam jurisdic…
  • Rossocorsa S.R.L. v. Romanelli, 325 So. 3d 869 (Fla. 4th DCA 2021)
    …s for the proposition that even an isolated sale made with knowledge that the product will be used in Florida is sufficient to subject the seller to the jurisdiction of Florida courts. One of those cases in particular, Gillins v. Trotwood Corp., 682 So. 2d 693 (Fla. 5th DCA 1996), has similar facts. But the issue in Gillins and in the other cases cited by appellees was the question of minimum contacts, the second part of the Venetian Salami test. Id. at 693. Gillins involved a defective product shi…

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw