# Petition for Writ of Certiorari — Shoppers Food Warehouse Corp. v. Moreno (No. 99-1733) > Briefs, arguments, decisions, and more. URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/brief%3Amicro_IA40386014_0955%3A1 ## Record - **Collection:** Supreme Court brief - **Document type:** Petition for Writ of Certiorari - **Published:** January 1, 1999 ## Text Supreme Court, U.S. rin & D 991 733 APR 2 8 2000 No. 99- Uru ts Us tuas IN THE Supreme Court of the Gmted States SHOPPERS FOOD WAREHOUSE MD CoRrpP., Petitioner, VS. ASUNCION MORENO, Respondent. On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI JEFFREY S. SUTTON Counsel of Record CHAD A. READLER JONES, DAY, REAVIS & POGUE 1900 Huntington Center 41 South High Street Columbus, Ohio 43215 (614) 469-3855 Counsel for Petitioner venom a i QUESTION PRESENTED May a long-arm statute constitutionally reach a nonresident defendant when the defendant’s only activities in the forum consist of advertising and when the out-of-state accident did not arise from that advertising? PARTIES TO THE PROCEEDING BELOW The parties in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals were plaintiff Asuncion Moreno and defendant Shoppers Food Warehouse MD Corp. Shoppers Food Warehouse MD Corp. is currently owned by Rich Food Holdings, Inc., which in turn is owned by SuperValu Inc. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page oF ns 8 he 8 0G |) a ira era i PARTIES TO THE PROCEEDING BELOW ......... ii pp Ree Roly 8 ey: Sa Vv a a ear a eee aa mee ] ee sag af ge Sek Fe aoe a 1 CONSTITUTIONAL AND ep rile 2 tg 6. . xe l Seen GO EUG... 2. ee ce 2 REASONS FOR GRANTING THE WRIT ........... 7 I. The Court Should Resolve A Lower-Court Split Over When A Cause Of Action Arises Out Of Activities In The Forum State For Purposes Of Asserting Specific Personal Jurisdiction Over A Nonresident Defendant ...................... 8 A. Due Process Requires Minimum Contacts With A State Before It May Assert Long-Arm Jurisdiction Over A Nonconsenting Defendant ............... 8 B. A Deep Division Of Authority Exists Among The Lower Courts Regarding The Type Of Relationship That Must Exist Between The Litigation And The Defendant’s Forum Activities To Establish Specific Jurisdiction............ 1] II. This Recurring Federal Question Is Exceedingly GS We Putin kd kaw a eae. Se Rees 18 5 | | | 1V III. This Case Presents An Appropriate Vehicle For Resolving A Pressing Jurisdictional Issue ._.. . 21 IE. oe eee dy fy eet eee 23 Vv TABLE OF AUTHORITIES Page Cases Akro Corp. v. Luker, 45 F.3d 1541 (Fed. Cir. 1995) ... 15 Arguello v. Industrial Woodworking Mach. Co., S38 P.26 1120 (Utah 1992).................. 15 Ballard v. Savage, 65 F.3d 1495 (9th Cir. 1995) ...... 13 Bayles v. K-Mart Corp., 636 F. Supp. 852 eee BOE on eho ane eae eo 17, 20 Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497 (1954) ............. 22 Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462 (1985) .. 9 Calder v. Jones, 465 U.S. 783 (1984) ............... 9 Camelback Ski Corp. v. Behning, 539 A.2d 1107 (Md. 1988) ................ 17,18 Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc. v. Shute, We EI Br Ne ok nee inne be eee dae 2, 8, 10 City of Virginia Beach v. Roanoke River Basin Ass'n, 776 F.2d 484 (4th Cir. 1985) ...0..0000000... 15 Clark v. City of St. Augustine, Fla., : 977 F. Supp. 541 (D. Mass. 1997) .......... 12, 17 Cornelison v. Chaney, 545 P.2d 264 (Cal. 1976) ...... 15 Creech v. Roberts, 908 F.2d 75 (6th Cir. 1990) ....... 16 Deluxe Ice Cream Co. v. R.C.H. Tool Corp., 726 F.2d 1209 (7th Cir. 1984) ............... 14 Dirks v. Carnival Cruise Lines, 642 F Supp. 971 (D. Kan. 1986) .............. 13 Doe v. National Med. Servs., 974 F.2d 143 (10th Cir. 1992) ............... 19 Domtar, Inc. v. Niagara Fire Ins. Co., 533 N.W.2d 25 (Minn. 1995)) ............. 6, 15 Duffy v. Shoppers Food Warehouse MD Corp., No. 93-2372 (D.D.C. July 31, 1995) ......... 4, 20 vi Fidelity and Cas. Co. of New York v. Philadelphia Resins Corp., 766 F.2d 440 (10th Cir. 1985); . .. 16 Gelfand v. Tanner Motor Tours, Lid. , 339 F.2d 317 COGN. FO a kno re eae eee 12, 16 Gildewell Motors, Inc. v. Pate, 577 P26 1290 Cee. ISTE) 2. wn. 5 ia cans 17 Gray v. Lewis & Clark Expeditions, Inc., 12 F. Supp. 2d 993 (D. Neb. 1998) ............ 12 Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U.S. 235 (1958) ........... 20 Harriman v. Demoulas Supermarkets, Inc., 518 A246 1035 Gide. 1906) ... 2. ceca 16 Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia, S.A. v. Hall, 466 U.S. 406 C19G4E) . 2... ccc eaes passim International Shoe Co. v. Washington, SOO 3).D. FIO CISEe os on ese eee 8,9 Keeton v. Hustler Magazine, Inc., 465 U.S. 770 (Fr er rons ee) ee? 9,10 Munley v. Second Judicial Dist. Court of Nevada, 761 P.2d 414 (Nev. 1988) ................... 17 Nowak v. Tak How Invs., Ltd., 94 F.3d 708 Cigt Cae TR on ek ccG cae eee ee eee 11,12 Pearrow v. National Life & Accident Ins. Co., 703 F.2d 1067 (8th Cir. 1983) ............. 12, 16 Perkins v. Benguet Consol. Mining Co., PAS U.S. SF CIPD cs os vice teesey esau 9 Prejean v. Sonatrach, Inc., 652 F.2d 1260 | ee err 13 Scheidt v. Young, 389 F.2d 58 (3d Cir. 1968) ........ 16 Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U.S. 186 (1977) ............. 9 Shute v. Carnival Cruise Lines, 897 F.2d 377 (9th Cir. 1990), rev’d on other grounds GPUS. SES CI 6 iin ee ee passim vil Siskind v. Villa Found. for Educ., Inc.., 642 S.W.2d 434 (Tex. 1982)................. 16 Southwire Co. v. Trans-World Metals & Co., 735 F.2d 440 (11th Cir. 1984) ............... 15 State of Iowa ex rel. Miller v. Baxter Chrysler Plymouth, Inc., 456 N.W.2d 371 (lowa 1990) ... 12 Tatro v. Manor Care, Inc., 625 N.E.2d 549 Se SE, 3b nk eee ae bee ee 13 Third Nat’! Bank in Nashville v. WEDGE Group Inc., 882 F.2d 1087 (6th Cir. 1989) ............. 14,19 Thomason v. Chemical Bank, - 661 A.2d 595 (Conn. 1995) ............. 6, 15, 19 Vons Companies, Inc. v. Seabest Foods, Inc., 926 P.2d 1085 (Cal. 1996))........... 6, 15, 18, 19 Wims v. Beach Terrace Motor Inn, Inc., 759 F Supp. 264 (E.D. Pa. 1991) ............. 13 World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286 (1980) ......0 2. 10, 20 Constitutional Provisions and Statutes ae A SE oy was os cba ecard 2 Sn EE oo Sore a cae oak ee ee ] Erm GE EOE. oe ek ees b acd nwawact 2,4 Miscellaneous Authorities Brilmayer, How Contacts Count: Due Process Limitations On State Court Jurisdiction 1980 Sup. Ct. Rev. 77 18 Brilmayer, Related Contacts and Personal Jurisdiction, 101 Harv. L. Rev. 1444 (1988) ............... 17 Vill Maloney, Specific Personal Jurisdiction and the “Arise From or Relate To” Requirement. . . What Does It Mean? 50 Wash. & Lee Ap MEO oe yo os a eke 17, 19 Richman, A Sliding Scale to Supplement the Distinction Between General and Specific Jurisdiction (Part II), 72 Calf. L. Rev. 1328 (1984) .............. 17, 18 Twitchell, A Rejoinder to Professor Brilmayer, 101 Harv. L. Rev. 1465 (1988) ............... 17 Twitchell, Zhe Myth of General Jurisdiction, 1O1 Faery. L. Rev. GIO (7988)... 2. we. 17 AE Ob Rattont is Ce BA AAI ete ltt abe 8 A Soe en HR Arar ae Ie PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI Shoppers Food Warehouse respectfully petitions for a writ of certiorari to review the 4-3 en banc decision of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, holding that personal jurisdiction exists over petitioner in this case. In reaching this conclusion, the lower court rejected petitioner’s contention that due process precludes personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant regarding a slip-and-fall accident that occurred in Maryland when the defendant’s only forum contact consists of advertising in a metropolitan newspaper based in the District of Columbia and when the accident did not stem from that advertising. OPINIONS BELOW The en banc decision of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals (Pet. App. 1a-41a) is published at 746 A.2d 320 (2000); the original panel decision (Pet. App. 44a-63a) is published at 715 A.2d 107 (D.C. 1998); and the decision of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia (Pet. App. 69a-73a) is unpublished. JURISDICTION The District of Columbia Court of Appeals entered its en banc decision on February 17, 2000. Jurisdiction in this Court exists under 28 U.S.C. § 1257. The notifications required by Rule 29.4 and 28 U.S.C. §§ 2403(a) & 2403(b), which may be applicable in this case, are being made with the service of this petition. CONSTITUTIONAL AND STATUTORY PROVISIONS The District of Columbia’s long-arm statute provides in relevant part: (a) A District of Columbia Court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a person, who acts directly or by an agent, as to a claim for relief arising from the person’s — 2 (1) transacting any business in the District cf Columbia; * * * * (4) causing any tortious injury in the District of Columbia by an act or omission outside the District of Columbia if he regularly does or solicits business, engages in any other persistent course of conduct, or derives substantial revenue from goods used or consumed, or services rendered, in the District of Columbia; * * * * (b) When jurisdiction over a person is based solely upon this section, only a claim for relief arising from acts enumerated in this section may be asserted against him. D.C. Code § 13-423. The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment provides: No person shall . . . be deprived of life, sida or property without due process of law . U.S. Const., amend. V. STATEMENT OF THE CASE This case presents a recurring federal question, one that has deeply divided the lower courts, one that the court below acknowledged has prompted conflicting rulings, one that this Court has previously acknowledged but declined to address, see Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia, S.A. v. Hall, 466 US. 408, 415 n.10 (1984), and one that this Court previously decided to review, Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc. v. Shute, 498 U.S. 807-08 (1990), but ultimately did not reach, 499 US. 585, 589 (1991). The issue is this: Does the Due Process Clause permit the District of Columbia or any State (collectively “State”) to compel a nonresident to defend a personal-injury action in its jurisdiction when the accident Sn ON Me sh! DS AORN 3 occurred outside of the forum, when the defendant’s only forum contacts consist of advertising in a metropolitan newspaper, and when the tort was not caused by the defendant’s advertising? Because the Court has not yet explained the requisite connection between a plaintiff's injury and a defendant’s forum contacts before specific personal jurisdiction may be asserted over a nonresident and because the issue has generated a serious division of authority in the lower courts, petitioner respectfully submits that the question is ripe for review in this case. 1. On November 20, 1993, Asuncion Moreno slipped and fell on a piece of okra while shopping in Takoma Park, Maryland at a grocery store owned by Shoppers Food Warehouse MD Corp. (“Shoppers”). Ms. Moreno is a resident of the District of Columbia. Shoppers is a Maryland corporation with its principal place of business in Lanham, Maryland. Shoppers has stores in Maryland and Virginia, but does not maintain any stores or offices in the District. Nor does it have an interest in any property in the District or sell any goods or supply any services there. While the grocery store places advertisements in The Washington Post, whose primary circulation includes the District, Maryland and Northern Virginia, “Ms. Moreno never claimed to have seen” the advertisements before going to the Shoppers store. Pet. App. 18a. 2. On April 5, 1994, Ms. Moreno filed a negligence complaint against Shoppers in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, alleging that Shoppers failed to keep its premises in a reasonably safe condition. Ms. Moreno attcinpted to obtain personal jurisdiction over Shoppers under the long-arm statute of the District of Columbia. That statute is designed to be “coextensive in reach with .. . the due process clause,” Pet. App. 8a, and permits jurisdiction (1) in cases “arising from the person’s . . . causing tortious injury in the District of Columbia by an act or omission outside the District — — 4 of Columbia if he regularly does or solicits business . . . in the District of Columbia,” D.C. Code § 13-423(a)(4), or (2) in cases “arising from the person’s . . . transacting any business in the District of Columbia,” D.C. Code § 13-423(a)(1). 3. Shoppers promptly moved to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, arguing that the exercise of personal jurisdiction over it would violate due process. On June 22, 1994, the trial court denied Shoppers’ motion. It concluded that jurisdiction did not lie under section 13-423(a)(4) because no injury had been caused “in” the District of Columbia. Still, it found jurisdiction constitutionally permissible under section 13- 423(a){1). In the court’s view, it was “reasonable” to require Shoppers to defend the lawsuit in the District because it “owns numerous stores in Maryland and Virginia, several of which are located within a few miles of the District of Columbia border,” and it “solicit[s] customers in the District” through advertisements in The Washington Post. Pet. App. 4a. 4. On August 18, 1995, Shoppers moved for reconsideration. In doing so, it pointed to a recent federal court decision, Duffy v. Shoppers Food Warehouse MD Corp., No. 93-2372 (D.D.C. July 31, 1995), in which the court held on virtually identical facts that due process precluded Shoppers from being forced to defend a tort action in the District. Nonetheless, the trial court denied the motion, after which the case proceeded to a jury trial. On September 14, 1995, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Ms. Moreno, awarding her $197,307 in compensatory damages. Shoppers filed several post-trial motions, and continued to challenge the constitutionality of asserting personal jurisdiction over it. On - December 15, 1995, the trial court issued a final order denying each of these post-trial motions, after which Shoppers appealed. Pet. App. 65a. 5. On July 16, 1998, a divided panel of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals affirmed, rejecting Shoppers’ claim that the District of Columbia lacked personal jurisdiction over Cr ER EE SOE ase Ra rg eee le EP te oe ee rol 5 it. Pet App. 44a. Shoppers sought en banc review of the panel’s decision on the jurisdictional issue, which the Court of Appeals granted on January 4, 1999. Pet. App. 42a. 6. On February 17, 2000, a 4-3 majority of the en banc Court of Appeals affirmed. At the outset the majority acknowledged that both the District of Columbia courts and the Federal trial courts within the District had “disagreed” over this “difficult matter” — specifically whether “advertising constitutes a sufficient nexus for the District’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant in a personal injury lawsuit where the injury took place” in a different jurisdiction. Pet. App. Sa. The court then found it “unnecessary” to decide whether Shoppers’ “business contacts” with the District “were sufficiently continuous and systematic’ to confer general jurisdiction in this Case,” id. at 19a, because “if the claim either arises out of or relates to the nonresident defendant’s business activity, specific jurisdiction may be exercised,” id. at 22a. In considering how to measure whether a cause of action “arises from” or is “related to” a defendant’s contacts with a State for specific-jurisdiction purposes, the court observed that “[o]}ther jurisdictions have wrestled with” the question “and have reached diverse conclusions as to the appropniate test for determining the proper nexus between the nonresident defendant’s business activity and the claim asserted by the plaintiff” Jd. at 23a. The Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, the majority noted, have adopted a “but for” test, simply asking whether “‘but for’ the defendant’s forum-related activities, the injury would have occurred.” Pet. App. 26a (citations omitted). Other courts, the majority added, have rejected a “but for” test in favor of a “proximate cause” test, which requires “the forum contacts [to] be necessary to the proof of the cause of action.” Pet App. 23a (quotation omitted). The majority opinion identified the First Circuit as the main proponent of this test. Pet. App. 24a. 6 Still other courts, the majority noted, have focused less on whether the forum contacts caused the claimant’s injuries and more on whether they are “related to” or have a “substantial connection” to the injury. Pet. App. 24a-28a. The majority characterized the Supreme Courts of California, Connecticut and Minnesota all as embracing this test: (1) “the Supreme Court of California decided to retain its ‘substantial connection’ test as a flexible standard which best interprets the relatedness requirement” (citing Vons Companies, Inc. v. Seabest Foods, Inc., 926 P.2d 1085, 1096 (Cal. 1996)); (2) the Minnesota Supreme Court says that when a claim “‘has a ‘substantial connection’ with the forum state, specific jurisdiction exists” (quoting Domtar, Inc. v. Niagara Fire Ins. Co., 533 N.W.2d 25, 31 (Minn. 1995)); (3) the Connecticut Supreme Court says that due process does “‘not [] require a causal connection between the defendant’s solicitation here and the plaintiffs’ lawsuit’” but only that “‘it was reasonably foreseeable that, as a result of that solicitation, the defendant could be sued in Connecticut by a solicited person on a cause of action similar to that now being brought by the plaintiffs’” (quoting Zhomason v. Chemical Bank, 661 A.2d 595, 603 (Conn. 1995)). Pet. App. 27a-28a. Based upon its “review of nexus tests used in other jurisdictions, [and] the criticisms leveled at some of them,” the majority ultimately adopted a “substantial connection” or “discernible relationship” test. Pet. App. 28a. That 1s to say: To have specific jurisdiction over such claims, the injury need not be caused by the forum contacts but must only “have some ‘discernible relationship’” to the defendant’s activity in the forum. The court then found that Shoppers’ advertising satisfied this test -- first, because the activity had “a discernible relationship to a claim by a District resident who becomes a customer in one of Shoppers’ stores and is injured”; and, second, “because it is reasonably foreseeable that, as a result of advertising extensively and over a substantial period of time in the District’s major circulation newspaper, Shoppers could be a “% adel wh Perr it Ne Tem ot 7 sued in the District on a claim similar to that filed by Ms. Moreno.” Jd. The court rejected Shoppers’ argument that “the nexus requirement is not satisfied because there is no inherent relationship between the duty breached (to provide a safe store) and the ‘transaction’ of advertising in the District of Columbia media.” Pet. App. 29a. In the court’s view, this theory would permit only a claim for “something akin to false advertising” and would impose “too heavy a burden” on the plaintiff when it comes to personal-injury actions like this one. Chief Judge Wagner dissented on the ground that “[t]he mere fact that a foreign corporation advertises for business within the District of Columbia is insufficient” to exercise personal jurisdiction over tort claims that-“arise wholly in the foreign state.” Pet. App. 31a. Judge Schwelb, joined by Judge Steadman, likewise dissented on the ground that Ms. Moreno’s slip-and-fall claim could not arise from advertising that she did not see. /d. at 41a. REASONS FOR GRANTING THE WRIT At stake in this case is the type of relationship between a defendant’s forum activity and a cause of action that must exist before the Due Process Clause permits specific jurisdiction to be exercised over a nonresident defendant. Is the pertinent connection between the forum activities and the injury a matter of “proximate” causation? Is the connection a matter of “but for” causation? Or is it one of a “substantial” or “discernible” relationship? The lower courts are hopelessly conflicted over the answer, and show no signs of reconciling these outcome- dispositive ames in perspective any time soon. Nor is this Court unfamiliar with the issue. The Court explicitly identified, but declined to decide, the question in Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia, S.A. v. Hall, 466 U.S. 408, 415 n.10 (1984). Compare id. at 424-28 (Brennan, J., dissenting). And in Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc. v. Shute, 498 U.S. 807-08 (1990), the Court granted review of the question 8 but ultimately resolved the case on statutory grounds by applying a forum-selection clause to the claimant, 499 U.S. 585, 589 (1991). Since Helicopteros and Carnival Cruise, this lower-court split in authority has not abated. Not only has the number of highest State courts and Federal courts of appeals that have taken sides on the issue increased but the number of jurisdictions with competing Federal and State court decisions affecting the same State has grown as well. Residents of the District of Columbia, Massachusetts and California, for example, all face different jurisdictional tests in this area depending solely on the happenstance of whether the claim is brought in Federal or State court. The elimination of that intolerable development — dueling legal tests applicable not just to citizens in different jurisdictions, but to citizens of the same State — by itself ought to justify review. For these reasons and those elaborated below, the Court should grant the writ. I. The Court Should Resolve A Lower-Court Split Over When A Cause Of Action Arises Out Of Activities In The Forum State For Purposes Of Asserting Specific Personal Jurisdiction Over A Nonresident Defendant. A. Due Process Requires Minimum Contacts With A State Before It May Assert Long-Arm Jurisdiction Over A Nonconsenting Defendant. The Due Process Clause limits the power of State courts to issue a valid personal judgment against a nonresident defendant. In /nternational Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310 (1945), the Court held that the Clause imposes significant limits on the ability of States to employ long-arm statutes to compel nonconsenting parties to defend lawsuits in a foreign jurisdiction. In the frequently-repeated words of /nternational Shoe, the defendant must have “certain minimum contacts” with the forum and those contacts must be such that “the maintenance of the suit does not offend ‘traditional notions of 9 fair play and substantial justice.” Jd at 316 (citations omitted). In applying these requirements, the Court has distinguished between efforts to assert jurisdiction over causes of action that arise out of the defendant’s activities in the forum State and those that do not. On one side of the ledger, when : the cause of action does not stem from the defendant’s forum activities, those activities must be sufficiently “continuous and systematic” before the assertion of in personam jurisdiction will ] be permitted. Perkins v. Benguet Consol. Mining Co.,, 342 U.S. 437, 438 (1952). The Court has referred to this exercise of power as one of “general” jurisdiction. Helicopteros, 466 U.S. at 414 n.9. On the other side of the ledger, “specific” jurisdiction requires fewer contacts with the forum State, but does require a showing (1) that the defendant “purposefully directed’ his activities at residents of the forum,” and (2) that “the litigation results from alleged injuries that ‘arise out of or relate to’ those activities.” Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 472 (1985) (quoting Keeton v. Hustler Magazine, Inc., 465 U.S. 770, 774 (1984), and Helicopteros, 466 U.S. at 414). In specific jurisdiction cases, “the Court has said that a ‘relationship among the defendant, the forum, and the litigation’ is the essential foundation of in personam jurisdiction.” Helicopteros, 466 U.S. at 414 (quoting Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U.S. 186, 204 (1977)). } The Court has considered several cases dealing with the first aspect of the specific jurisdiction inquiry — whether the defendant sufficiently directed its activities at the forum State to subject it to jurisdiction. See, e.g., Burger King, supra (upholding jurisdiction for suit involving contractual relationship of nonresident franchisee); Calder v. Jones, 465 U.S. 783 (1984) (upholding jurisdiction for libel suit based upon distribution of publication in plaintiffs home State); Keeton v. Hustler Magazine, Inc., supra (upholding jurisdiction Mp RN Maat Tah FIV EEL OD SS MART NES ail, 10 for libel suit by nonresident based upon regular distribution of publication in forum State); World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286 (1980) (denying jurisdiction where automobile is sold to plaintiff who then drives to forum State). What the Court has had less occasion to consider, and did not need directly to address in each of these cases, was when alleged contact with a forum State sufficiently “arises out of or relates to” the subject matter of the litigation. In Helicopteros, it is true, Justice Brennan raised the issue and thoroughly explained how it should be analyzed in his dissenting opinion. 466 US. at 424-28. But the opinion for the Court declined to reach the question because the parties had failed to raise it themselves. /d. at 415-16 & n.10. Six years later in Carnival Cruise Lines, the Court granted review of the question in a personal-injury action originating in the Ninth Circuit. As in this case, the defendant’s only contacts with the forum involved advertising. And, as in this case, the court of appeals held that a personal injury occurring outside of the forum still arose from that advertising for specific jurisdiction purposes. 895 F.2d 377, 385. In the aftermath of the lower court's decision, this Court granted review (498 U:S. 807-808 (1990)) of the following question: “Can a long-arm statute constitutionally reach a defendant whose activities in the forum state are insubstantial and bear only a tenuous relationship to the cause of action?” While the parties briefed and argued the “arising out of’ question under this Court’s specific-jurisdiction case law, the Court decided the case on the basis of a forum-selection clause signed by the parties. 499 U.S. 585, 589 (1991). Sob Severe ee eee eee MINED eee 1] B. A Deep Division Of Authority Exists Among The Lower Courts Regarding The Type Of Relationship That Must Exist Between The Litigation And The Defendant’s Forum Activities To Establish Specific Jurisdiction. Both before and after Helicopteros and Carnival Cruise Lines, the highest courts of several States and most of the Federal Circuits have struggled to determine when a cause of action “arises from” a nonresident defendant’s forum contacts and when accordingly specific jurisdiction may be asserted over an unwilling defendant. The en banc opinion for the court of appeals identified at least three different schools of thought on point: (1) one focused on a “proximate cause” relationship between the defendant’s forum activities and the cause of action; (2) another focused on a “but for” relationship between those contacts and the claim; and (3) still another focused not on a cause-and-effect relationship between the two but more loosely on a “substantial connection” or “discernible relationship.” In analyzing these different views, the court identified at least six highest courts (including its own) that had taken conflicting stands on the question left open by Helicopteros and Carnival Cruise Lines. While this lower- court uncertainty by itself ought to justify review, the majority opinion in truth understates this depth of division. The most stringent of the three standards is the “proximate cause” test. It requires the claimant to show that jurisdiction “is premised on a contact that is a legal cause of the injury underlying the controversy — i.e., that form[s] an important, or [at least] material, element of proof in the plaintiff's case.” Nowak v. Tak How Investments, Lid., 94 F.3d 708, 715 (quotation omitted). The First, Second and Eighth Circuits all have approved variations of a “proximate cause” standard as the primary benchmark for specific jurisdiction. In considering the issue most recently, the First Circuit noted that proximate cause “distinguishes between foreseeable and 12 unforeseeable risks of harm,” while a ““but for’” requirement ... has in itself no limiting principle; it literally embraces every event that hindsight can logically identify in the causative chain.” Jd. at 715. While continuing to “emphasize the importance of proximate causation” -- that jurisdiction “is premised on a contact” that is an “element of proof in the plaintiff's case” -- the First Circuit has also permitted “‘a slight loosening of that standard when circumstances dictate.” /d. at 715-716; see also Clark v. City of St. Augustine, Fla., 977 F. Supp. 541, 544 (D. Mass. 1997) (“Although St. Augustine’s solicitation of tourism within Massachusetts satisfies the “but for’ causation standard required by the long-arm statute, it does not satisfy the due process proximate cause standard because, while in Massachusetts, the [plaintiffs] had no contact or contract with the City”). The Eighth and Second Circuits also seem to favor a proximate cause requirement. See Pearrow v. National Life & Accident Ins. Co., 703 F.2d 1067, 1069 (8th Cir. 1983) (Tennessee company’s solicitation of Arkansas resident to visit Opryland was insufficient to show that a subsequent negligence claim “arose out of the solicitation in Arkansas’) (construing Arkansas long-arm statute, not due process clause, though both turn on “arising out of” requirement); Gray v. Lewis & Clark Expeditions, Inc., 12 F. Supp. 2d 993, 998 (D. Neb. 1998) (“[C]auses of action involving negligence at tourist sites do not arise out of enticing advertisements directed at the forum state”); Gelfand v. Tanner Motor Tours, Ltd., 339 F.2d 317, 321-22 (2d Cir. 1964) (bus injury based on negligence in Nevada did not arise from contractual sale of tickets by travel agency in New York). The Supreme Court of Iowa also appears to apply a proximate cause standard. See State of Iowa ex rel. Miller v. Baxter Chrysler Plymouth, Inc., 456 N.W.2d 371, 377 (lowa 1990) (upholding specific jurisdiction for “consequences that arise proximately from” forum activities -- in that instance from unlawful advertising that reached the forum State) (quotation omitted). District courts from the Third and Tenth Circuits II snes NAO mm US NMS POs ht en Ne Nena eee 13 have reached similar results. See Wims v. Beach Terrace Motor Inn, Inc., 759 F. Supp. 264, 267-68 (E.D. Pa. 1991) (holding that “causal link” between New Jersey motor inn’s advertising in Pennsylvania and plaintiff's injury in New Jersey was “too attenuated” to say that injury “arose from” advertising); Dirks v. Carnival Cruise Lines, 642 F. Supp. 971, 975 (D. Kan. 1986) (failing to find “causal connection” between foreign cruise line’s advertising in forum and personal- injury claim). Instead of requiring the forum contact to be an element of the cause of action as under the “proximate cause” test, several other courts merely require a “but for” Causative relationship between the forum contacts and the claim. The Ninth Circuit continues to be the most ardent defender of this test. In Shute v. Carnival Cruise Lines, 897 F.2d 377, 385 (9th Cir. 1990), rev'd on other grounds 499 U.S. 585 (1991), the court held that this test “preserves the essential distinction between general and specific jurisdiction.” There, the court held that “but for” the defendant’s advertising in the forum State, the plaintiff would not have taken the cruise on which she was injured and therefore the injury “arises out of’ the promotional activities. See also Ballard v. Savage, 65 F.3d 1495, 1500 (9th Cir. 1995) (following “but for” test). The Massachusetts Supreme Court also embraces this approach, concluding in a recent case that a California hotel’s solicitation of business from Massachusetts residents satisfied the “arising out of” requirement where, but for the hotel’s solicitations and acceptance of reservations, the plaintiff would not have suffered a personal injury in California. Zatro v. Manor Care, Inc., 625 N.E.2d 549, 551 (Mass. 1994). Other courts, while less explicit, also favor a “but for” approach to this inquiry. In Prejean v. Sonatrach, Inc., 652 F.2d 1260, 1270 n.21 (Sth Cir. 1981), the Fifth Circuit analyzed the problem this way: 14 Logically, there is no reason why a tort cannot grow out of a contractual contact. In a case like this, a contractual contact is a “but for” causative factor for the tort since it brought the parties within tortious “striking distance” of each other. While the relationship between a tort suit and a contractual contact is certainly more tenuous than when a tort suit arises from a tort contact, that only goes to whether the contact is by itself sufficient for due process, not whether the suit arises from the contact. The Seventh Circuit describes the necessary relationship similarly as whether the claims “lie[] in the wake of [the] commercial activities” of the defendant in the forum. Deluxe Ice Cream Co. v. R.C.H. Tool Corp., 726 F.2d 1209, 1215-16 (7th Cir. 1984). The third lower-court test in this area is the least stringent. Unlike the courts that require some sort of causative relationship between the claim and forum contacts, these courts merely require “the operative facts of the controversy” to be “related to the defendant’s contact with the state.” Third Nat'l Bank in Nashville v. WEDGE Group Inc., 882 F.2d 1087, 1091 (6th Cir. 1989). Adherents to this school of thought (id. ) point out that the Supreme Court has described the specific jurisdiction inquiry both in terms of an “arising out of” and a “related to” connection, Helicopteros, 466 U.S. at 415 n.10, then look to Justice Brennan’s dissenting opinion in Helicopteros to support this test, id. at 427 (“Limiting the specific jurisdiction of a forum to cases in which the cause of action formally arose out of the defendant’s contacts with the State would subject constitutional safeguards . . . to the vagaries of the substantive law or pleading requirements of each State.’’). In addition to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals here, the Sixth Circuit follows this approach, WEDGE Group, 882 F.2d at 1091 & n.2 (finding jurisdiction because the claim had “a substantial connection with” and is “related to” defendant’s forum contacts), as do the Fourth, Eleventh and nr Ca een EnEEr einen nari neeeam anaes TO PEE Oe ee ee ee wes 15 Federal Circuits. See Akro Corp. v. Luker, 45 F.3d 1541, 1547 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (adopting related to standard); City of Virginia Beach v. Roanoke River Basin Ass'n, 776 F.2d 484, 487 (4th Cir. 1985) (“the activities that support the jurisdictional claim must coincide with those that form the basis of the plaintiff's substantive claim”); Southwire Co. v. Trans- World Metals & Co., 735 F.2d 440, 442 (11th Cir. 1984). Several State Supreme Courts have followed this approach as well. See Vons Companies, Inc. v. Seabest Foods, Inc., 926 P.2d 1085, 1096 (Cal. 1996) (“A claim need not arise directly froin the defendant’s forum contacts in order to be sufficiently related to the contact to warrant the exercise of specific jurisdiction. Rather, as long as the claim bears a substantial connection to the nonresident’s forum contacts, the exercise of specific jurisdiction is appropriate”); Cornelison v. Chaney, 545 P.2d 264 (Cal. 1976); Domtar, Inc. v. Niagara Fire Ins. Co., 533 N.W.2d 25, 31 (Minn. 1995) (when a claim “has a ‘substantial connection’ with the forum state, specific jurisdiction exists”); 7homason v. Chemical Bank, 661 A.2d 595, 603 (Conn. 1995) (“arising out of’ test does “‘not [] require a causal connection between the defendant’s solicitation here and the plaintiffs’ lawsuit” but only that “it was reasonably foreseeable that, as a result of that solicitation, the defendant could be sued in Connecticut . . . on a cause of action similar to that now being brought by the plaintiffs’”) (purporting to construe “arising out of’ language of long-arm statute, not due process Clause). See also Arguello v. Industrial Woodworking Mach. Co., 838 P.2d 1120, 1124 (Utah 1992) (declining to find jurisdiction where “the contacts of the out-of-state defendant are unrelated to plaintiff's claims”). Besides reflecting vastly different ways of articulating this test, the lower-court cases also reflect vastly different results. Disparate verbal formulations of the appropriate relationship between a cause of action and the defendant’s forum contacts, it turns out, serve more than semantic ends; they have had 16 distinct jurisdictional consequences. And that is especially true in the context of cases like this one and Carnival Cruise Lines, where the sole contact with the forum consists of some form of advertising and the claim stems from an out-of-state personal injury. Some courts, like the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in this instance, have found personal jurisdiction over nonresident defendants under circumstances akin to those here. See, e.g., Pet. App. 29a-3la (finding jurisdiction over a personal-injury action based solely on advertising in a metropolitan newspaper); Creech v. Roberts, 908 F.2d 75, 80 (6th Cir. 1990) (finding jurisdiction over out-of-state malpractice action based exclusively on advertising and solicitations in forum); Shulte v. Carnival Cruise Lines, 897 F.2d 377 (finding jurisdiction over a personal-injury action based solely on solicitations in the forum); Harriman v. Demoulas Supermarkets, Inc., 518 A.2d 1035, 1038-39 (Me. 1986) (finding jurisdiction over personal-injury action based on advertising, soliciting, and establishing business relationships with suppliers in forum). See also Siskind v. Villa Found. for Educ., Inc., 642 S.W.2d 434, 436-37 (Tex. 1982) (finding jurisdiction over breach of contract action involving foreign corporation that advertises in Texas). Other State and Federal courts have found that advertising alone does not suffice to establish personal junsdiction. See, e.g., Pearrow v. National Life and Accident Ins. Co., 703 F.2d at 1069 (sending brochures into forum to solicit customers does not authorize state courts to confer personal jurisdiction over out-of-state defendant in slip-and-fall action); Fidelity and Cas. Co. of New York v. Philadelphia Resins Corp., 766 F.2d 440, 447 (10th Cir. 1985) (advertisement in national trade publication insufficient to subject party to personal jurisdiction in negligence action); Scheidt v. Young, 389 F.2d 58 (3d Cir. 1968) (advertising and telephone conversations do not support jurisdiction for personal injury at out-of-state lodge); Gelfand v. Tanner Motor Tours, Ltd., 339 F.2d at 321-22 (sale of tickets through travel Se SENNA CEES ORT TEES it SO COPE REIS 17 agency does not support jurisdiction for personal injury on out- of-state bus trip); Camelback Ski Corp. v. Behning, 539 A.2d 1107, 1111-12 (Md. 1988) (toll-free telephone number and other solicitation activity in forum do not support jurisdiction for personal injury at out-of-state ski resort); Munley v. Second Judicial Dist. Court of Nevada, 761 P.2d 414, 415-16 (Nev. 1988) (advertising and promotional activities in forum are not sufficient to subject ski resort in neighboring state to jurisdiction in personal-injury action); Clark v. City of St. Augustine, Fla., 977 F. Supp. at 545 (“advertis[ing] extensively” in the forum did not subject Florida city to personal jurisdiction in Massachusetts in slip-and-fall action); Bayles v. K-Mart Corp., 636 F. Supp. 852 (D.D.C. 1986) (advertising in forum did not subject Virginia retail store to personal jurisdiction in the District of Columbia in slip-and-fall action). See also Glidewell Motors, Inc. v. Pate, 577 P.2d 1290, 1292 (Okla. 1978) (advertising in newspaper circulated in forum did not subject nonresident defendant to jurisdiction in automobile-title dispute). This division among the lower courts, together with this Court’s near encounter with the issue in Helicopteros and Carnival Cruise Lines, also has prompted a spirited debate among legal commentators. Here, too, a wide range of views has developed. See, e.g., Maloney, Note, Specific Personal Jurisdiction and the “Arise From or Relate To” Requirement . .. What Does It Mean?, 50 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1265, 1300 (1993) (“The modified ‘but for’ test will allow courts to achieve flexibility without completely sacrificing structure”); Twitchell, A Rejoinder to Professor Brilmayer, 101 Harv. L. Rev. 1465, 1468 (1988) (preferring “the formality of the substantive relevance test”); Brilmayer, Related Contacts and Personal Jurisdiction, 101 Harv. L. Rev. 1444. 1458-64 (1988) (rejecting the “but for” test); Twitchell, The Myth of General Jurisdiction, 101 Harv. L. Rev. 610, 656 (1988) (criticizing the “substantive relevance approach”); Richman, A Sliding Scale to Supplement the Distinction Between General 18 and Specific Jurisdiction (Part Il), 72 Calif. L. Rev. 1328, 1339 (1984) (“[Helicopteros]| serves only to enhance the awareness of the issue”); Brilmayer, How Contacts Count: Due Process Limitations On State Court Jurisdiction 1980 Sup. Ct. Rev. 77. As these numerous case citations and law review articles suggest, the issue presented implicates a deep and abiding division in the lower courts and among legal scholars. Ample time has been given to allow enlightened perspectives on the issue to develop, and if it was appropriate to grant review of the issue in Carnival Cruise Lines in 1990, it seems doubly appropriate to do so today in view of the large number of federal circuits and state supreme courts that have issued Opinions on the matter.- Even under the most forbearing application of the lower-court conflict considerations of Rule 10, this federal issue is ripe for review. Il. This Recurring Federal Question Is Exceedingly Important. In addition to the stark division of lower-court authority, the essential nature of this federal question independently justifies granting the writ. First, as the extensive case citations in the petition illustrate, this issue arises frequently in litigation and is of substantial importance to the day-to-day workings of the Federal and State courts. The issue arises whenever a nonresident company advertises in one forum and an injury occurs in another. Not just the travel industry faces this issue, as in Carnival Cruise Lines, but so also do ski resorts, as in Camelback, supra, and all manner of retailers, as in this case. The frequency with which the issue is litigated, together with the large number of lower courts that have cried out for guidance from this Court over its proper resolution, reinforces the consequential nature of this federal question. See, e.g., Vons Cos. v. Seabest Foods, Inc., 926 P.2d at 1096 n.4 (“[t}he high court has declined to clarify the relatedness element of specific jurisdiction”); Doe v. National Med. Serv., 974 F.2d 19 143, 146 (10th Cir. 1992) (“{t]he Supreme Court has not addressed whether there is a distinction between suits which ‘arise out of and those which ‘relate to’ the defendant’s contacts”); Third Nat’l Bank in Nashville v. WEDGE Group a Inc., 882 F.2d at 1091 n.2 (In Helicopteros “the Supreme Court expressly declined to reach the questions (1) whether the terms ‘arising out of and ‘related to’ describe different connections between a cause of action and a defendant’s contacts with a forum, and (2) what sort of tie between a cause of action and a defendant’s contact with a forum is necessary to a determination that either connection exists.”); Thomason v. Chemical Bank, 661 A.2d at 599-600 (“In the context of ‘specific’ jurisdiction, although the United States Supreme Court has required the plaintiff's cause of action to ‘arise out of or relate to’ the defendant’s forum-directed activities, that court has not articulated a standard for what constitutes ‘arising out of.””); see also Maloney, Specific Personal Jurisdiction and the “Arise From or Relate To”’ Requirement . . . What Does It Mean? 50 Wash. & Lee at 1265-66 (“A particularly troublesome problem that courts face today is the confusion and inconsistency of the requirement that a cause of action ‘arise from or relate to’ the defendant’s contacts with the forum state in order for a court to assert specific personal jurisdiction. With the United States Supreme Court’s refusal to consider the issue in Shute v. Carnival Cruise Lines, it appears that the confusion will persist.”). Second, the importance of the issue goes beyond whether a nonresident defendant should be compelled to litigate an action in a foreign jurisdiction based on the slimmest of forum- related contacts. It also goes to a fundamental question of federalism and interstate comity — the extent to which one State may import a cause of action that another State ought by custom and rights have power to resolve in its own courts. The constitutional restrictions on personal jurisdiction thus are “more than a guarantee of immunity from inconvenient or distant litigation. They are a consequence of territorial 20 limitations on the power of the respective States.” Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U.S. 235, 250-51 (1958). In this respect, due process “act[s] as an instrument of interstate federalism,” World-Wide Volkswagen, 444 U.S. at 294, permitting the States to retain one of the “essential attributes of sovereignty, including, in particular, the sovereign power to try causes in their courts,” id. at 293. The minimum contacts inquiry accordingly “acts to ensure that the States, through their courts, do not reach out beyond the limits imposed on them by their status as coequal sovereigns in a federal system.” /d. at 291-92. Preserving these foundational lines between the power of one sovereign State over that of another is uniquely a function of this Court, and an especially important function when the lower courts are applying different tests and reaching different results over the same question and virtually-identical fact patterns. Third, in addition to the customary requests for uniformity that a deep conflict in the lower courts prompts, the issue here has led to uncertainty even for residents in the same State. The Ninth Circuit and the California Supreme Court have long charted different paths in answering this specific- jurisdiction question. See, supra. So too, more recently, have the First Circuit and the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. See, supra. Even Shoppers itself has faced different resolutions of this issue. While the District of Columbia Court of Appeals seized jurisdiction over this case, the federal district court has declined jurisdiction on virtually identical facts. See Duffy v. Shoppers Food Warehouse MD Corp., No. 93-2372 (D.D.C.); see also Bayles v. K-Mart Corp., 636 F.Supp. 852 (customer’s slip-and-fall claim did not “aris[e] from” corporation’s advertising in District of Columbia media and therefore specific jurisdiction could not constitutionally be exercised over the corporation). No one litigant and the residents of no one State should have to face such unpredictable consequences stemming from precisely the same conduct. OI MIN at ZR I i RB eg cere pn cece 2] Fourth, by embracing a “discernible relationship” or “related to” test that does not require a causative connection between the defendant’s forum contacts and the plaintiff s injury, the lower court threatens to diminish, if not entirely collapse, the Court’s distinction between “specific” and “general” jurisdiction. General jurisdiction, recall, deals with situations in which the complaint does not arise from the defendant’s forum contacts but the defendant’s contacts with the forum are so “continuous and systematic” that due process permits personal jurisdiction over any cause of action involving the defendant. An interpretation of the Due Process Clause, however, that allows specific jurisdiction whenever a court finds some “discernible relationship” between the injury and the defendant’s forum contacts will make resort to this Court’s general jurisdictional inquiry utterly unnecessary and will eventually make the doctrine a quaint artifact of constitutional law. The failure of the lower court here, and in many other courts, to preserve this vital distinction also merits review. Ill. This Case Presents An Appropriate Vehicle For - Resolving A Pressing Jurisdictional Issue. This petition squarely presents an opportunity to resolve a conspicuously open question in the Court’s personal jurisdiction cases: Must there be a causal relationship between the defendant’s forum contacts and the plaintiff's complaint to assert specific jurisdiction over the defendant? Here, the plaintiff did not see (and accordingly did not rely upon) the defendant’s Washington Post advertisements in choosing to visit the Shoppers’ store in Maryland. Pet. App. 4a, 18a. The only way that specific jurisdiction could exist on this record, as a result, was through some form of “related to” test that did not have a cause-and-effect element. Ultimately, that is precisely the test the lower court adopted; it is precisely the test that Justice Brennan advocated in dissent in Helicopteros, and it is precisely the test the majority acknowledged but did not have occasion to address in Helicopteros. 22 The case also presents an opportunity to resolve the question in a context in which it most frequently arises. As shown above, all manner of retailers frequently advertise in jurisdictions where they have no stores or any other meaningful presence, and accordingly frequently face the question whether a personal injury on their premises arises from these advertising activities. Lastly, it makes no difference that this petition involves a federal question arising in the District of Columbia courts. Although enacted by Congress, the District’s long-arm statute is modeled after the Virginia and Maryland long-arm statutes, and like most long-arm statutes, is designed to be co-extensive with the reach of the Due Process Clause. Pet. App. 10a, 18a. No doubt the validity of this interpretation of the District’s long-arm statute is governed by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, not that of the Fourteenth Amendment. But that difference has not precluded the Court from reviewing the constitutionality of government conduct in the District in the past. See Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497 (1954). Nor, at any rate, has plaintiff argued in this case that the minimum contacts inquiry in specific-jurisdiction cases differs depending on whether the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendment is invoked by the nonresident defendant. 23 CONCLUSION The petition should be granted. Respectfully submitted, JEFFREY S. SUTTON Counsel of Record CHAD A. READLER JONES, DAY, REAVIS & POGUE 1900 Huntington Center 41 South High Street Columbus, Ohio 43215 (614) 469-3855 Counsel for Petitioner April 2000 APPENDEX la DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS SHOPPERS FOOD WAREHOUSE, Appellant, v. Asuncion MORENO, Appellee. No. 96-CV-21. Decided Feb. 17, 2000. Before WAGNER, Chief Judge, TERRY, STEADMAN, SCHWELB, FARRELL, RUIZ and REID, Associate Judges. ON REHEARING EN BANC REID, Associate Judge: The main issue presented by this case is whether the trial court had personal jurisdiction over appellant, a Maryland corporation which extensively advertised its grocery stores in the District of Columbia’s major circulation newspaper and other communications media, where appellee, a District resident, alleged in a negligence “slip and fall” lawsuit that she suffered personal injuries in one of appellant’s Maryland stores located near the District’s borders. The trial court concluded that it had personal jurisdiction over appellant, and a jury awarded appellee damages for her injuries. A majority panel of this court affirmed the trial court in an opinion issued on July 16, 1998, Shoppers Food Warehouse v. Moreno, 715 A.2d 107 (D.C.1998) (Moreno I). The panel’s opinion was vacated and Shoppers’ petition for rehearing en banc was granted on January 4, 1999. 722 A.2d 845 (D.C.1999). After rehearing en banc, which we granted only to consider the jurisdictional 2a issue,’ we reaffirm the trial court’s judgment. We hold that the trial court properly exercised personal jurisdiction because appellant, through its extensive advertising activity in a major District of Columbia newspaper, purposefully solicited District residents as customers for its nearby Maryland and Virginia stores and thus transacted business in the District; and further, because Ms. Moreno’s claim had a discernible relationship to its advertising, Shoppers could have reasonably anticipated being haled into court to defend against a personal injury suit brought by a District resident. I. FACTUAL SUMMARY A District of Columbia jury found that on November 20, 1993, appellee Asuncion Moreno slipped and fell on okra in a grocery store owned by appellant Shoppers Food Warehouse, a Maryland corporation (“Shoppers”), and as a result of Shoppers’ negligence, sustained back and hand injuries. She was awarded damages in the amount of $197,307 for past and future medical expenses, mental anguish, and pain and suffering. From the beginning of Ms. Moreno’s lawsuit, Shoppers argued that, contrary to Ms. Moreno’s position, the trial court lacked personal jurisdiction over it under D.C.Code § 13-423(a)(4) (1995) (causing tortuous injury in the District of Columbia).? Later, Ms. Moreno claimed that even if ' We leave intact the division’s disposition of the remaining issues on appeal. See Moreno J, 715 A.2d at 111-12. ? In relevant part, D.C.Code§ 13-423 states as follows: (a) A District of Columbia Court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a person, who acts directly or by an agent, as to a claim for relief arising from the person’s— (1) transacting any business in the District of Columbia; * * * CT 3a jurisdiction were not based on subsection (a)(4), it rested on § 13-423(a)(1) (transacting any business in the District of Columbia). She pointed out that Shoppers placed extensive ads in The Washington Post, a major District of Columbia newspaper, soliciting customers to its stores in Maryland and Virginia. Indeed, the record on appeal is replete with pages of weekly Shoppers’ advertisements in The Washington Post between the period October 6, 1993 and December 1, 1993, including November 20, the date on which Ms. Moreno alleged that she fell. The ads for Shoppers’ Maryland and Virginia stores contained pictures and prices of produce, meats, canned goods, beverages, candies and other packaged goods.* The Shoppers’ store where Ms. Moreno was injured is located in Takoma Park, Maryland, within two miles of her home in the District of Columbia. Shoppers maintained that § 13-423(a)(4) did not apply because no tortious injury took place in the District. Furthermore, Shoppers argued that Ms. Moreno failed to show the applicability of § 13-423(a)(1) which, it asserted, must be read in conjunction with § 13-423(b). It also pointed out that Shoppers is a Maryland Corporation having its principal place of business in Maryland; the store in which Ms. Moreno shopped is located in Maryland; and Ms. Moreno provided no (4) causing tortious injury in the District of Columbia by an act or omission outside the District of Columbia if he regularly does or Solicits business, engages in any other persistent course of conduct, or derives substantial revenue from goods used or consumed, or services rendered, in the District of Columbia: * * * (b) When jurisdiction over a person is based solely upon this Section, only a claim for relief arising from acts enumerated in this section may be asserted against him. * Additional information regarding the ads appears in the analysis section of this opinion. 4a affidavit showing that she actually saw the Washington Post advertisements. In its order of June 22, 1994, the motions court agreed with Shoppers that subsection (a)(4) was inapplicable because Ms. Moreno’s injury occurred in Maryland, not the District. However, the court concluded that there was personal jurisdiction under subsection (a)(1) for the following reasons: First, it is reasonable to require the Defendant to defend this suit in the District of Columbia... The Defendant owns numerous stores in Maryland and - Virginia, several of which are located within a few miles of the District of Columbia border...._ The Defendant contracts with and advertises in [T]he Washington Post, thereby targeting and soliciting customers in the District of Columbia area .... Furthermore, the Defendant has failed to “show that it [is] at a ‘severe disadvantage’ in being required to defend in [the District of Columbia];” Tom Brown & Co. v. Francis, 608 A.2d 148, 152 (D.C.1992) (quoting Electronic Media Int'l v. Pioneer Communications, Inc., 586 A.2d 1256, 1258 (Me.1991)[) }. Since the Plaintiff resides in the District, she has a strong interest in litigating this suit here. Second, the Defendant, by contracting with Washington based businesses (i.e., The Washington Post, the District of Columbia Yellow Pages) for adverti[s]ing purposes, has transacted business in the District of Columbia. Thus, the Defendant purposefully and voluntarily availed itself of the privileges and protections of the District of Columbia.... Finally, the Defendant’s contacts with the forum state were of such quality and nature that it is reasonable for the Defendant to reasonably anticipate being haled into court in the District of Columbia. It is reasonable to conclude that the Defendant derives a substantial portion Sa of its revenue from District of Columbia residents—it specifically targets with advertisements that demonstrate how the Defendant’s prices compare favorably with the prices in supermarkets. Although the motions court did not explicitly mention § 13-423(b) in its June order, it referenced a prior trial court opinion, Daniels v. Kanof, 116 Daily Wash. L. Rptr. 2053, 2057 (Super.Ct.1988), involving an advertisement in the District by a nonresident corporation. That opinion stressed “the foreseeability of injury to District of Columbia plaintiffs as a result of defendant’s actions and the consequences of its actions by soliciting and advertising for business in the District of Columbia.”* Accordingly, the trial court “conclude[d] that there are enough contacts with the District of Columbia in this case to satisfy the minimum contacts requirement.” Il. ANALYSIS Personal Jurisdiction This court has never determined whether newspaper and other advertisements in the District by a nonresident corporation owning a chain of stores, some of which are located in very close proximity to the District’s borders, are sufficient to meet the minimum contacts requirement of the District’s long-arm statute, and whether the advertising constitutes a sufficient nexus for the District’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant in a personal injury lawsuit where the injury took place in a store in a neighboring jurisdiction. Trial courts in the District that have * Daniels also concluded that “defendant’s activities, i.e., the advertising and soliciting for business which presumably has attracted this plaintiff. as well as many other District of Columbia residents to its stores, clearly has caused a consequence in the District, i.e., plaintiff's injuries.” 116 Wash. L. Rptr. at 2057. 6a examined this issue have disagreed. Judges in both the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and the United States District Court for the District of Columbia have expressed different views at different stages of cases involving Shoppers as a defendant.° Survey of Supreme Court Decisions _ and Past Decisions of this Court Our consideration of this difficult matter begins with a review of past Supreme Court decisions and the past decisions of this court which have interpreted § 13-423(a)(1) and (b). The review will assist us in determining whether the trial court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction in this case satisfies the “minimum contacts” requirement of the due process clause, and whether the requirement of § 13-423(b)— that a claim for relief under § 13-423(a)(1) must aris[e] from acts enumerated [in § 13-423(a)]—has been met. In the early years after § 13-423 was enacted, decisions in Our cases were guided both by Supreme Court precedent and also by then existing Maryland and Virginia law. We look first at early Supreme Court cases that shaped our initial decisions under § 13-423(a)(1). /nternational Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L_Ed. 95 (1945), the seminal decision, held that, in keeping with “ ‘traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice,’ ” there must be “minimum contacts” between the defendant and the forum state before personal jurisdiction can be exercised consistently with due > The differences in the views of the judges are reflected in the orders of June 22, 1994, and December 15, 1995, in this case, in Duffy v. Shoppers Food Warehouse, No. Civ. A. 93-2372, 1994 WL 151204, at *3 (D.D.C Apr 14, 1994), and in the order of July 31, 1995, transferring the matter to the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. SEIN AES LP TEE ES SARS sen Ta process.° Jd. at 316, 66 S.Ct. 154 (quoting Milliken v. Meyer, 311 US. 457, 463, 61 S.Ct. 339, 85 L.Ed. 278 (1940)). At the same time, /nternational Shoe emphasized that when a defendant seeks and “enjoys the benefits and protection of the laws” of the forum state, the defendant may face “obligations [which] arise out of or are connected with the [defendant’s] activities within the [forum] state.” /d. at 319, 66 S.Ct. 154 (citations omitted). Under these circumstances, requiring a defendant “to respond to a suit ... [in the forum state] in most instances, hardly [can] be said to be [an] undue [burden].” /d. Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U.S. 235, 78 S.Ct. 1228, 2 L_Ed.2d 1283 (1958), further refined the required nexus. A plaintiff's unilateral activity in relation to a defendant cannot alone sustain personal jurisdiction under the “minimum contacts” theory. /d at 253, 78 S.Ct. 1228. Rather, the Court held, “it is essential in each case that there be some act by which the defendant purposefully avails itself of the privilege of conducting activities within the forum State...” /4. In Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U.S. 186, 97 S.Ct. 2569, 53 L.Ed.2d 683 (1977), a shareholder’s derivative action, and Kulko v. Superior Court of California, 436 U.S. 84, 98 S.Ct. 1690, 56 L Ed 2d 132 (1978), a domestic relations matter, the Supreme Court reiterated the “fairness” and “reasonableness” theme sounded in /nternational Shoe. One of the indices of “fairness” and “reasonableness” of the exercise of personal jurisdiction by the forum state is whether the defendant “ ‘purposefully availed [itself]’ of the ‘benefits and protections’ ” of the forum state’s laws, Kulko, supra, 436 U.S. at 94, 98 S.Ct. 1690 (citing Shaffer, supra, 433 U.S. at 216, 97 S.Ct. 2569 (footnote * “[D]ue process requires ... that in order to subject a defendant to a judgment in personam, if he be not present within the territory of the forum, he have certain minimum contacts with it such that the maintenance of the suit does not offend ‘traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.’ ” /nternational Shoe, supra, 326 U.S. at 316, 66 S.Ct. 154 (citations omitted). 8a omitted)), and thus, “could reasonably have anticipated being ‘haled before a ... court’ ” in that jurisdiction. /d. at 97-98, 98 S.Ct. 1690 (quoting Shaffer, supra, 433 U.S. at 216, 97 S.Ct. 2569 (footnote omitted)). Ku/ko also examined whether there was a “sufficient connection” between the defendant and the forum state by determining “whether the ‘quality and nature’ of the defendant’s activity is such that it is ‘reasonable’ and ‘fair’ to require him to conduct his defense in that State.” /d. at 92, 98 S.Ct. 1690. Part of the answer depended on whether the defendant “purposefully derive[d] benefit from any activities relating to the [forum state].” /d at 96, 98 S.Ct. 1690. The first of our significant cases decided under § 13-423(a)(1), Environmental Research Int'l, Inc. v. Lockwood Greene Engineers, Inc., 355 A.2d 808 (D.C.1976) (en banc), not only articulated the aforementioned principles from Supreme Court cases, but also demonstrated that Congress intended the District’s long-arm statute, like the corresponding statutes in Maryland and Virginia, to be coextensive in reach with the exercise of personal jurisdiction permitted by the due process clause. Specifically, we stated that: [t]he legislative history of [the District’s long-arm statute] makes it clear that it was Congress’ intent to provide the District with a long-arm statute equivalent in scope to those already in effect in Maryland and Virginia.... In interpreting their statutes, the courts of both Maryland and Virginia have concluded that they permit the exercise of personal jurisdiction over nonresident defendants to the extent permitted by the due process clause of the United States Constitution. Id. at 810-11 (footnotes omitted). We then stated: “We reach a similar conclusion as to our statute.” Jd. at 811. We “note[d] the trend toward liberalization of jurisdictional limitations” and the fact that “[e]ven a small amount of 9a in-jurisdiction business activity is generally enough to permit the conclusion that a nonresident defendant has transacted business here.” /d.’ Although our earliest cases did not focus much on § 13-423(b), we had occasion to interpret that provision in Cohane v. Arpeja-California, Inc., 385 A.2d 153 (D.C. 1978), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 980, 99 S.Ct. 567, 58 L.Ed.2d 651 (1978), where we explained: The limitation in § 13-423(b) that the claim for relief must arise from the transaction of business in the District of Columbia is meant to prevent “the assertion of claims in the forum state that do not bear some relationship to the acts in the forum state relied upon to confer jurisdiction.” Malinow v. Eberly, 322 F Supp. 594, 599 (D.Md.1971). Once, however, the claim is related to acts in the District, § 13-423 does not require that the scope of the claim be limited to activity within this jurisdiction. ” See also Bueno v. La Compania Peruana de Radiodifusion, S.A., 375 A.2d 6, 8 (D.C.1977) (focusing upon whether the defendant had engaged in some “purposeful, affirmative activity within the District of Columbia”) (citations omitted). 10a Id. at 158-59* Thus, under Cohane, if a claim is “related to [defendant’s} acts in the District,’ the requirement of § 13-423(b) is met. We applied the same “relate to” principle in Berwyn Fuel, Inc. v. Hogan, 399 A.2d 79, 80 (D.C.1979), where we also made explicit the principle recognized in Lockwood Greene, supra, that § 13-423 “permits a jurisdictional reach coextensive with that permitted by the due process clause” /d. at 80 (citing /nternational Shoe, supra, 326 US at 310, 66 S$ Ct. 154, Cohane, supra, 385 A.2d at 158) Berwyn reiterated that “[t]he only nexus required by [§ 13-423](a)(1) . between the District of Columbia and the nonresident defendant is ‘some affirmative act by which the defendant brings itself within the jurisdiction and establishes minimum contacts.’ ” /d. (quoting Cohane, supra, 385 A.2d at 158) Between 1981 and 1983, after the Supreme Court decided World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286, 100 S Ct. 559, 62 L.Ed 2d 490 (1980), we determined that personal jurisdiction over nonresident defendants existed * In Malinow, supra, a decision of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, the court discussed the (b) subsection of the then existing comparable Maryland long-arm statute which specified: “(b) When jurisdiction over a person 1s based solely upon this section, only a cause of action arising from acts enumerated in this section may be asserted against him.” 322 F.Supp. at 597. The Maryland court stated: The drafters of the forebear of the Maryland statute ... would probably state that § 96(b) merely prevents the assertion of claims in the forum state that do not bear some relationship to the acts in the forum state relied upon to confer jurisdiction.... The Court in McGee, [v. International Life Ins. Co.[,] 355 U.S. 220, 78 S.Ct. 199, 2 L.Ed 2d 223 (1957),] stated on page 223 of 355 U.S., [78 S.Ct. 199] that it was sufficient to confer jurisdiction constitutionally that the “ * * * suit was based on a contract which had substantial connection with that State.” Id. at 599 (emphasis added in Malinow). & lla under our long-arm statute in four out of five cases? World-Wide Volkswagen reaffirmed that “[t]he limits imposed on state jurisdiction by the Due Process Clause, in its role as a guarantor against inconvenient litigation, have been substantially relaxed over the years.” /d. at 292, 100 S.Ct. 559. It referenced the “fundamental transformation in the American economy” and “[t]he economic interdependence of the States,” id. at 293, 100 S.Ct. 559, and highlighted two principles governing a due process analysis in personal jurisdiction cases: (1) “the foreseeability that is critical .... is that the defendant’s conduct and connection with the forum State are such that he should reasonably anticipate being haled into court there”, and (2) “[w]hen a corporation ‘purposefully avails itself of the privilege of conducting activities within the forum State,’ .. it has clear notice that it is subject to suit there, and can act to alleviate the risk of burdensome litigation by procuring insurance, passing the expected costs on to customers, or, if the nsks are too great, severing its connection with the State.” Id. at 297, 100 S.Ct. 559 (quoting Hanson, supra, 357 U.S. at 253, 78 S.Ct. 1228). * One of these cases, AMAF Int'l Corp. v. Ralston Purina Co., 428 A.2d 849 (D.C.1981), was decided under D.C.Code § 13-334 pertaining to foreign corporations that “do” or transact business in the District. AMAF International, a District corporation, sued Ralston, a Missouri corporation for negligence and breach of contract relating to an order of 600 bags of poultry feed to be shipped to Nigeria. Ralston engaged in another type of business activity in the District—making sales of its products to local supermarkets. In reversing the trial court’s dismissal of the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction, we stressed a principle re-articulated in World-Wide Volkswagen, supra, “ ‘When a corporation purposefully avails itself of the privilege of conducting activities within the forum State, it has clear notice that it is subject to suit there.” ” AMAF International, 428 A.2d at 851 (quoting World-Wide Volkswagen, supra, 444 US. at 297, 100 S.Ct. 559 (other citation and internal quotations omitted)). 12a World-Wide Volkswagen helped to guide our decisions in the cases decided between 1981 and 1983, the most significant of which were Mouzavires v. Baxter, 434 A.2d 988 (D.C.1981) (en banc); Smith v. Jenkins, 452 A.2d 333 (D.C.1982); and Hummel v. Koehler, 458 A.2d 1187 (D.C.1983). In addition to following previous announced principles, these cases clarified that “the most critical inquiry 1s not whether the nonresident defendant is physically present in the forum but whether the defendant’s contacts with the forum are of such a quality and nature that they manifest a deliberate and voluntary association with the forum” and are not “fortuitous or accidental.” Mouzavires, supra, 434 A.2d at 995, 997, Smith, supra, 452 A.2d at 337. Mouzavires also declared that § 13-423(a)(1) “embraces those contractual activities of a nonresident defendant which cause a consequence [in this jurisdiction].” 434 A.2d at 992. And see Cockrell v. Cumberland Corp., 458 A.2d 716 (D.C.1983) (applying the “cause a consequence” principle). Between 1984 and 1993, three important decisions were handed down by the Supreme Court: Keeton v. Hustler Magazine, Inc., 465 U.S. 770, 104 S.Ct. 1473, 79 L.Ed.2d 790 (1984); Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia, S.A. v. Hall, 466 U.S. 408, 104 S.Ct. 1868, 80 L.Ed.2d 404 (1984); and Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 105 S.Ct. 2174, 85 L.Ed.2d 528 (1985). Discussion in Keeton centered on whether the minimum contacts requirement was met under New Hampshire’s long-arm statute in a libel action brought by a resident of New York who sued an Ohio corporation, Hustler Magazine, Inc. in a federal court in New Hampshire. If those contacts are “random, isolated, or fortuitous,” the Court stated, due process requirements are not satisfied. 465 U.S. at 774, 104 S.Ct. 1473. The only connection the Ohio corporation had with New Hampshire was the monthly sale of its magazine, issues of which contained the alleged libel that was the focus of the lawsuit. After reiterating the fairness and reasonableness principles governing the minimum contacts doctrine, the l3a Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s dismissal of the complaint, saying in part: “Where, as in this case, respondent Hustler Magazine, Inc., has continuously and deliberately exploited the New Hampshire market, it must reasonably anticipate being haled into court there in a libel action based on the contents of its magazine.” Jd. at 781, 104 S.Ct. 1473 (citing World-Wide Volkswagen, supra, 444 U.S. at 297-98, 100 S.Ct. 559). Helicopteros, supra, elucidated the distinction between general and specific jurisdiction in personal jurisdiction cases: (1) “[W]hen a State exercises personal jurisdiction over a defendant in a suit arising out of or related to the defendant’s contacts with the forum, the State is exercising ‘specific jurisdiction’ over the defendant,” 466 U.S. at 414 n. 8, 104 S.Ct. 1868 (citation omitted); and (2) “When a State exercises personal jurisdiction over a defendant in a suit not arising out of or related to the defendant’s contacts with the forum, the State has been said to be exercising ‘general jurisdiction’ over the defendant.” /d. at n. 9 (citations omitted). Burger King, in turn, summarized the principles and policies relating to the due process clause and personal jurisdiction. First, the court rejected any “mechanical tests” or “talismanic formulas” for the determination of personal jurisdiction, 471 U'S. at 478, 485, 105 S.Ct. 2174, and reaffirmed that “ ‘the facts of each case must [always] be weighed’ in determining whether personal jurisdiction would comport with ‘fair play and substantial justice.” ” Jd. at 485-86, 105 S.Ct. 2174 (quoting Kulko, supra, 436 U.S. at 92, 98 S.Ct. 1690). Second, “[w]here a forum seeks to assert specific jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant who has not consented to suit there, [the] ‘fair warning’ requirement is satisfied if the defendant has ‘purposefully directed’ his activities at residents of the forum, Keeton, supra, 465 U.S. at 774, 104 S.Ct. 1473, and the litigation results from alleged injuries that ‘arise out of or relate to’ those activities, Helicopteros, supra, 466 U.S. at 414, 104 S.Ct. 1868.” Burger King, supra note 8, 471 U.S. at 472. 14a . Third, “[jJurisdiction is proper ... where the contacts proximately result from actions by the defendant himself that create a ‘substantial connection’ with the forum State.” /d. at 475, 105 S.Ct. 2174 (quoting McGee, supra note 8, 355 U.S. at 223, 78 S.Ct. 199 (other citation omitted)). Fourth, “where a defendant who purposefully has directed his activities at forum residents seeks to defeat jurisdiction, he must present a compelling case that the presence of some other considerations would render jurisdiction unreasonable.” Jd. at 477, 105 S.Ct. 2174. Finally, “[a] State generally has a ‘manifest interest’ in providing its residents with a convenient forum for redressing injuries inflicted by out-of-state actors.” /d. at 473, 105 S.Ct. 2174 (citing McGee, supra note 8, 355 U.S. at 223, 78 S.Ct. 199). Our later decisions construing § 13-423 have been consistent with the teaching of the Supreme Court in these due process cases. See, e.g., Salins, Inc. v. Sure Way Refrigerated Truck Transp. Brokers, Inc., 510 A.2d 1032 (D.C.1986); Fisher v. Bander, 519 A.2d 162 (D.C.1986); Lex Tex Lid. v. Skillman, 579 A.2d 244 (D.C.1990); Trerotola v. Cotter, 601 A.2d 60 (D.C.1991). In Fisher, for example, we stressed three justifications for asserting jurisdiction. First, “[the District] has an interest in providing its residents with the opportunity to redress grievances inflicted by out-of-state defendants.” 519 A.2d at 164. Second, “when out-of-state actors avail themselves of the benefits of contact within the forum [asserting jurisdiction], fairness requires that they be held accountable therein for the consequences of such activities.” Id. Third, “the voluntary establishment of contacts within the forum [asserting jurisdiction] helps to assure that litigating within that [jurisdiction] would not impose an undue burden on the out-of-state party.” Jd In Trerotola, supra, our focus was on § 13- 423(b), and the question was “whether, in the words of § 13-423(b), Cotter’s ‘claim for relief [arose] from acts enumerated in’ any subsection of § 13-423—in this case in § 13-423(a)(1).” 601 A.2d at 63 (citing Cohane, supra, 385 SS a gc rn ec nr cece ee ee 15a A.2d at 158). Pointing out that “§ 13-423(b) bars claims ‘unrelated to the acts forming the basis for personal jurisdiction [,]’” id. (citing Willis v. Willis, 211 U.S.App.D.C. 103, 106, 655 F.2d 1333, 1336 (1981)), we continued: For proper jurisdiction, therefore, the long-arm Statute requires that the claim raised have a discernible relationship to the “business” transacted in the District _. The critical test is whether the nonresident’s “conduct and connection with the forum state are such that he [or she] should reasonably anticipate being haled into court there.” World-Wide Volkswagen, supra, 444 US. at 297, 100 S.Ct. 559, quoted in Smith, supra, 452 A.2d at 336. Id. at 64. See also Everett v. Nissan Motor Corp. in U.S.A., 628 A.2d 106, 107 (D.C.1993), (emphasizing “the seminal requirement that [the out-of- state defendant] must undertake ‘some affirmative act by which the defendant brings itself within the jurisdiction and established minimum contact.’ - (quoting Cohane, supra, 385 A.2d at 158) (citation omitted). Applicable Legal Principles Distilled From Prior Cases Even though our survey of past decisions yields no case Squarely on point, there are pertinent legal principles which may be distilled from these cases to guide our decision in the case before us: (1) section 13-423(a)(1) is coextensive in reach with the personal jurisdiction allowed by the due process clause of the United States Constitution; (2) there are no “mechanical tests” or “talismanic formulas” for the determination of personal jurisdiction under § 13-423(a)(1) and (b), and the facts of each case must be weighed against notions of fairness, reasonableness and substantial justice; (3) under the due Process clause, the minimum contacts principle requires us to examine the quality and nature of the nonresident defendant’s contacts with the District and whether those contacts are voluntary and deliberate or only random, fortuitous, tenuous l6a and accidental; (4) where a nonresident defendant has ‘- purposefully availed itself of the benefits and protections of the District in engaging in a business activity in the forum jurisdiction, it is fair and reasonable to expect it to anticipate being sued in that jurisdiction; (5) in examining the nonresident defendant’s contacts with the District, the focus is placed on the relationship among the defendant, the forum and the litigation; (6) it is reasonable and fair for the District to exercise specific jurisdiction where a nonresident defendant has purposefully directed its activities at District residents, and claims against it by a District resident “arise out of or relate to,” Burger King, 471 U.S. at 472, 105 S.Ct. 2174 (emphasis added), or have a “substantial connection” with, McGee, supra note 8, 355 U.S. at 223, 78 S.Ct. 199, the business transacted in the District; and (7) the District has a manifest interest in providing a convenient forum in which its residents may seek relief for injuries inflicted by the nonresident defendant, especially where litigation within the District would not impose an undue burden on the nonresident defendant. We now turn to the application of these principles. However, we begin with the factual context of the case before us since “the facts of each case must [always] be weighed” against notions of fairness, reasonableness and substantial justice in ascertaining whether the court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant, Burger King, supra, 471 US. at 485-86, 105 S.Ct. 2174 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); and because “ ‘[the focus is placed] on the relationship among the defendant, the forum and the litigation.” ” Keeton, supra, 465 U.S. at 775, 104 S.Ct. 1473 (quoting Shaffer, supra, 433 U.S. at 204, 97 S.Ct. 2569) (other citations omitted). Factual Context Shoppers regularly solicits customers for its Maryland and Virginia stores by placing advertisements in the District of Columbia market through The Washington Post, the major — SS ennetenennenee ON RR CONG OR CT I en 17a newspaper headquartered in Washington, D.C., and other communications media. The record shows extensive Shoppers’ weekly advertisements in The Washington Post from October 6 through December 1, 1993, including the November 1993 date on which Ms. Moreno slipped and fell in a Shoppers’ store. The weekly ads appeared with the bold caption “SHOPPERS TOTAL WAREHOUSE PRICES EVERYDAY! FEATURE PRICES IN EFFECT 7 FULL DAYS!” The body of the ads contained a description of the products for sale in bold letters with the price, and sometimes with a picture of the sale item. At the top of the ad some additional inducement to shop at Shoppers appeared. For example, the October 13 and November 3, 1993 ads for the periods October 13 through 19, and November 3 through 9, 1993, included an opportunity to win tickets to a Washington Redskins football game with an inducement to “see store for details.” The ad for November 10 through 16 also offered an Opportunity to meet several football players from the Redskins’ team on November 23, 1993. In the middle of one of the pages containing the October 1, 1993 ad, Shoppers stated in bold letters: “No Matter Where You Live ... It’s Worth The Drive!” The November 17 through November 25, i993 ad pointed to the possibility that customers “could get a free Thanksgiving turkey or ham” if they collected enough coupons; in addition, the ad offered holiday postage stamps with a savings of ten cents on each book of twenty stamps. All of Shoppers’ advertisements in The Washington Post, including those covering the relevant week listed the addresses of its numerous stores located in Maryland and Virginia, including those in Takoma Park, Maryland. The record before us reveals that Shoppers also placed advertisements on television networks in the District, as well as listed one of its stores in the Yellow Pages of the C & P Telephone book in 1993-94. Together with her husband, sister and niece, Ms. Moreno, a District of Columbia resident, was engaged in 18a Thanksgiving shopping on Saturday, November 20, 1993, at one of Shoppers’ Takoma Park stores within two miles of her home when she slipped and fell on okra and sustained personal injuries. '° Application of Legal Principles To Ms. Moreno’s Case Having set forth the factual context of Shoppers’ contacts with the District and Ms. Moreno’s presence in one of Shoppers’ Maryland stores, we now analyze the due process issue in two parts. As the guiding principle for both parts of our analysis, we reiterate what we made plain in Berwyn, supra. “{Section] 13-423 ... permits a jurisdictional reach coextensive with that permitted by the due process clause.” 399 A.2d at 80 (citations omitted); see also Fisher, supra, 519 A.2d at 163 (“We have held that [§ 13- 423(a)(1) ] is co- extensive with the due process clause of the fifth amendment, and that its construction is subsumed by a due process analysis.”) (citations omitted). Therefore, we examine, first, whether the threshold due process requirements have been satisfied in this matter. “[D]Jue process requires only that in order to subject a defendant to a judgment in personam, if he be not present within the territory of the forum, he have certain minimum contacts with it such that the maintenance of the suit does not offend ‘traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.” ” International Shoe, supra, 326 U.S. at 316, 66 S.Ct. 154 (quoting Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U.S. 457, 463, 61 S.Ct. 339, 85 L.Ed. 278 (1940)) (other citations omitted). If the nonresident defendant’s business contacts are “sufficiently continuous and systematic” within the forum jurisdiction, the court may exercise general jurisdiction, 7homason v. Chemical Bank, 234 Conn. 281, 661 A.2d 595, 599 (1995); see also International Shoe, supra, 326 U.S. at 318, 66 S.Ct. 154. If the business contacts within the forum jurisdiction are not '° It is important to note that Ms. Moreno never claimed to have seen the Thanksgiving ad. 19a “sufficiently continuous and systematic,” the court may assert specific jurisdiction “whenever the defendant ‘has purposefully directed’ [its] activities at residents of the forum, Keeton, supra, and the litigation [has] result{ed] from alleged injuries that ‘arise out of or relate to’ those activities, Helicopteros, [supra, 466 U.S. at 414, 104 S.Ct. 1868][;] (Emphasis added.) Burger King, supra, 471 U.S. at 472-73, 105 S.Ct. 2174.” Thomason, supra, 661 A.2d at 599. The Minimum Contacts Requirement “Even a small amount of in-jurisdiction business activity is generally enough to permit the conclusion that a nonresident defendant has transacted business here.” Lockwood Greene, supra, 355 A.2d at 811. In this case, Shoppers placed extensive and substantial advertisements in The Washington Post over a continuous period of time, at least from October 1 through December 1. However, it is unnecessary to decide whether these business contacts were “sufficiently continuous and systematic” to confer general jurisdiction in this case, because we are satisfied that the trial court -had specific jurisdiction over Shoppers. Shoppers conducted “purposeful, affirmative activity within the District of Columbia,” Bueno, supra, note 7, 375 A.2d at 8, by purposefully directing advertisements for its Maryland and Virginia stores at a potential customer base in the District of Columbia, even declaring “No matter where you live ... it’s worth the drive” to Shoppers. See Burger King, supra, 471 U.S. at 472, 105 S.Ct. 2174. These advertisements are not random, fortuitous, accidental or attenuated, see Keeton, supra, 465 U.S. at 774, 104 S.Ct. 1473: nor are they too trivial to cause a consequence in the District, see Cockrell, supra, 458 A.2d at 717, or “too tenuous to satisfy” the minimum contacts requirement of the due process clause. Everett, supra, 628 A.2d at 108. Rather they are “of such a quality and nature that they manifest a deliberate and voluntary 20a association with [the District and its residents]." Mouzavires, supra, 434 A.2d at 995 By placing pages of large, illustrated advertisements often in bold letters, with shopping incentives, in the District's major circulation newspaper, The Washington Post, Shoppers obviously solicited customers from the District for their stores in Maryland and Virginia, clearly “with the expectation” that District residents would purchase products sold in those stores See Burger King, 471 US. at 473, 105 SCt 2174 Consequently, Shoppers “ ‘purposefully avail[ed] itself of the privilege of conducting activities within the [District],’ ” World-Wide Volkswagen, supra, 444 U.S. at 297, 100 S.Ct. 559, and “should reasonably [have] anticipate[d] being haled into court [in the District]” by a customer from the District who received an injury in one of its Maryland stores. /d.; see also Fisher, supra, 519 A.2d at 163 Fairness and Reasonableness of Exercising Jurisdiction in the District of Columbia Shoppers had “ ‘fair warning’ ” that it could be sued by a District resident who slipped and fell in one of its stores. Burger King, supra, 471 U.S. at 472, 105 S.Ct. 2174, Fisher, supra, 519 A2d at 163. By engaging in advertising that reached into the District and locating its stores with convenient access to customers from the District, Shoppers reasonably could have anticipated that these customers would shop at its stores and, once there, be subject to the same hazards as other customers, including a slip and fall like the one Ms. Moreno suffered. Shoppers therefore had “fair warning” that it could be sued in the home jurisdiction of the customers it courted. Under the circumstances, the District would have a “ ‘manifest interest’ in providing its residents with a convenient forum for redressing injuries inflicted by out-of-[jurisdiction] actors.” Burger King, supra, 47\ U.S. at 473, 105 S.Ct. 2174. Nothing in the record before us indicates that defense of Ms. Moreno’s action in the District constituted an undue burden on Shoppers. 2la Indeed, “the voluntary establishment of contacts within the forum [jurisdiction] helps to assure that litigating within that [jurisdiction] would not impose an undue burden on the out-of-state party.” fisher, supra, 519 A.2d at 164. The Metropolitan Washington, D.C. area functions, in many respects, aS a unified legal and commercial community. Consequently, “when out-of-state actors avail themselves of the benefits of contact within the forum [jurisdiction],” as did Shoppers in soliciting customers from the District’s population, “fairness requires that they be held accountable therein for the consequences of such activities.” /d. We are satisfied, then, that the minimum contacts requirement of the due process clause has been met in this case. Shoppers transacted business in the District of Columbia within the meaning of D.C.Code § 13-423(a)(1)."" Thus, jurisdiction in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia was proper, provided that Ms. Moreno established a nexus between her injury and Shoppers’ advertisements in the District sufficient to satisfy § 13-423(b). We turn now to the second due process issue. The Nexus Requirement Section 423(b) states: “When jurisdiction over a person is based solely upon [§ 13-423], only a claim for relief arising from acts enumerated in this section may be asserted against him.” The words “claim for relief arising from” also appear in § 13-423(a)(1): “A District of Columbia Court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a person, who acts directly or by an agent, aS to a claim for relief arising from the person’s (1) '' Shoppers argues that “there is simply no evidence in the record from which any Conclusion could be reached that Shoppers Food Warehouse MD Corp ; the defendant, contracted for any of this advertising, or that it did so in the District of Columbia.” However, the trial court could reasonably assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary and evidence relating to the corporate structure of Shoppers, that the advertisernents in the District for Shoppers’ grocery stores in Maryland were placed by Shoppers Food Warehouse MD Corp. 22a transacting any business in the District of Columbia” (emphasis added). Supreme Court precedent and our case law have construed § 13-423(b)’s “arising from” requirement flexibly. The requirement of a nexus between the plaintiff's claim and the defendant’s business activities in the forum jurisdiction has been stated in the disjunctive: the claim for relief must “result[ ] from alleged injuries that ‘arise out of or relate to’ those activities.” Burger King, supra, 471 U.S. at 472, 105 S.Ct. 2174 (quoting Helicopteros, supra, 466 U.S. at 414, 104 S.Ct. 1868) (emphasis added). Thus, if the claim either arises out of or relates to the nonresident defendant’s business activity, specific jurisdiction may be exercised. Earlier, in considering an insurance contract case, McGee, supra Note 8, asserted: “It is sufficient for purposes of due process that the suit was based on a contract which had substantial connection with [the forum] State.” 355 U.S. at 223, 78 S.Ct. 199 (references omitted). In Cohane and Berwyn we followed the “relate to” language. Cohane, supra, 385 A.2d at 158-59 (under § 13-423(b), “the claim [must be] related to acts in the District”); Berwyn, supra, 399 A.2d at 80 (“the claim must relate to the particular act or transaction forming the basis for personal jurisdiction”). In~Lex Tex, supra, we fleetingly focused on the “arising out of’ nexus language, rather than the words “relate to,” in concluding that “one can hardly demand the right to come to the District of Columbia to pursue activities exclusively on behalf of an out-of-state principal and expect to be absolutely immune from suit here by that principal for causes of action arising directly out of the performance of such activities,” 579 A.2d at 250. Most recently, in 7rerotola, supra, we interpreted the nexus requirement of § 13-423(b) to mean only “that the claim raised [must] have a discernible relationship to the ‘business’ transacted in the District.” 601 A.2d at 64 (citations omitted). We went on to explain that this “discernible relationship” is shown if “‘certain minimum 23a contacts’ between the nonresident and the forum” exist. /d. (quoting World-Wide Volkswagen, supra, 444 U.S. at 291, 100 S.Ct. 559). These minimum contacts reflect “ ‘conduct and connection with the forum state ... such that [the nonresident] should reasonably anticipate being haled into court there.’ ” Id. (quoting World-Wide Volkswagen, supra, 444 U.S. at 297, 100 S.Ct. 559). Stated differently, § 13-423(b) bars only “claims ‘unrelated to the acts forming the basis for personal jurisdiction.” Jd. at 63 (quoting Willis v. Willis, 211 U.S.App.D.C. 103, 106, 655 F.2d 1333, 1336 (1981) (other citation omitted)). Section 13-423(b) thus operates as a due process check on the reach or scope of the “transacting business” provision of the long-arm statute. Other jurisdictions have wrestled with the nexus requirement of specific jurisdiction in a variety of factual settings and have reached diverse conclusions as to the appropniate test for determining the proper nexus between the nonresident defendant’s business activity and the claim asserted by the plaintiff. The tests adopted range from narrow or strict causation-based tests to more flexible relatedness tests requiring the showing of some connection or relationship between the claim and the business activity. Into the strict, causation-based category fall the substantive relevance and proximate cause tests. These tests have sometimes been described as one test: substantive relevance/proximate cause. The substantive relevance test has been explained as follows: Under this test, for a cause of action to “arise from or relate to” a defendant’s contacts with the forum state, the contacts must have substantive relevance to the cause of action. More plainly, the forum contacts must be necessary to the proof of the cause of action. Mark M. Maloney, NOTE, Specific Personal Jurisdiction and the “Arise From Or Relate To” Requirement ... What Does It 24a Mean?, 50 WASHINGTON AND LEE LAW REVIEW 1265, 1282 (1993); see also, Lea Brilmayer, How Contacts Count: Due Process Limitations On State Court Jurisdiction, 1980 SUPREME CT. REV. 77. In Pizarro v. Hoteles Concorde Int'l, C.A., 907 F.2d 1256, 1259 (1st Cir. 1990), the First Circuit summarized and applied the proximate cause test to affirm a federal trial court’s dismissal of a negligence action for lack of personal jurisdiction: “Whether certain events ‘arise out of a nonresident defendant’s actions within [the forum jurisdiction] is comparable or analogous to whether certain actions can be said to be the legal, or the proximate cause of injuries suffered by a plaintiff.” See also Peckham v. Continental Casualty Ins. Co., 895 F.2d 830, 836 (1st Cir 1990) In a later case, Nowak v. Tak How Invs., Lid., 94 F.3d 708, 716 (ist Cir 1996), the First Circuit, desiring greater flexibility, deviated from its reliance on the proximate causation test, saying in part: “we intend to emphasize the importance of proximate causation, but to allow a slight loosening of that standard when circumstances dictate,” and concluding in the wrongful death action that: “While the nexus between [the nonresident defendant’s] solicitation of ... business [in the forum jurisdiction] and ... [the] death [of the plaintiff's wife, a Massachusetts’ resident] does not constitute a proximate cause relationship, it does represent a meaningful link between [the nonresident defendant's} contact [with the forum jurisdiction] and the harm suffered.” The court also stated, in language relevant to our case: “When a foreign corporation directly targets residents in an ongoing effort to further a business relationship, ... [t]he corporation’s own conduct increases the likelihood that a specific resident will respond favorably.” /d. at 715. Other courts have rejected the substantive relevance/proximate cause test altogether. For example, in Vons Companies, Inc. v..Seabest Foods, Inc., 14 Cal.4th 434, $8 Cal. Rptr.2d 899, 926 P.2d 1085 (1996), the court stated: 25a “[A] proximate cause test ... is inconsistent with the fairness rationale underlying the specific jurisdiction doctrine. A person who purposefully avails himself or herself of the benefits of doing business in the forum state must be prepared to answer lawsuits that relate to his or her activity there.” /d. at 1104 (referencing Burger King, supra, 471 U.S. at 472, 105 S.Ct. 2174); see also Mary Twitchell, The Myth of General Jurisdiction, 101 HARV. L. REV. 610, 653-54 (1988) (“[T]he substantive relevance approach is not the best guide ‘to dispute-specific jurisdiction” in part because “[t]he Supreme Court did not limit the specific jurisdiction quid pro quo rationale in /nternational Shoe to claims ‘directly arising out of forum activities; it noted that due process would be satisfied ‘in most instances’ if the obligations arise out of or are connected with the activities within the state.”) (footnote omitted). The “but for” test has been adopted by other courts. In contrast to the First Circuit, for example, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has rejected the substantive relevance/proximate cause test in favor of a “but for” test. See Tatro v. Manor Care, Inc., 416 Mass. 763, 625 N.E.2d 549, 553 (1994) ( “There is no readily apparent basis in the statutory language (‘arising from’) for the restrictive proximate cause approach adopted by the First Circuit.”) (Citation omitted). The “but for” test has been described as follows: [T]}he general theory [of the “but for” test] is that a cause of action ‘arises from or relates to’ the defendant’s forum state activities when “but for” those activities the cause of action would not have arisen. Therefore, if a plaintiff can trace the train of events leading up to the cause of action and find that the defendant’s activities contribute to this chain, the cause of action is said to arise from those activities for the purposes of determining personal jurisdiction. 26a Maloney, supra, 50 WASHINGTON AND LEE LAW REVIEW at 1277 (footnotes omitted). In Alexander v. Circus Circus Enterprises, Inc., 939 F.2d 847 (9th Cir.1991), the Ninth Circuit said: “[T]he critical focus in the ‘arising out of’ prong is whether, ‘but for’ the defendant’s forum-related activities, the injury would have occurred; that is, whether the ‘entire course of events ... was an uninterrupted whole which began with, and was uniquely made possible by, the [defendant’s] contacts in the [forum state].’” /d. at 853 (quoting Shute v. Carnival Cruise Lines, 897 F.2d 377, 384 (9th Cir.1990), rev'd on other grounds, 499 U.S. 585, 111 S.Ct. 1522, 113 L.Ed.2d 622 (1991)). The Supreme Court of California has rejected the “but for” test as probably “too lax” because “theoretically [it] may include any historical cause of the plaintiff's injuries,” Vons Companies, supra, 58 Cal.Rptr.2d 899, 926 P.2d at 1106, and because it “is overly mechanical and fails to concentrate on the central issue presented by a motion to quash for lack of specific jurisdiction— that is, whether the defendant’s forum contacts and plaintiff's claim. are related sufficiently so that it is fair to subject the defendant to jurisdiction in the forum.” /d. at 1108 (emphasis supplied); see also BRILMAYER, supra, 1980 Supreme Court Review at 84. Two other nexus tests should be mentioned. As early as 1976, the Supreme Court of California applied the “substantial connection” test to determine whether the nexus requirement had been satisfied: “Our inquiry is directed to whether plaintiff's cause of action, based on an accident which resulted from defendant’s allegedly tortuous act in Nevada, arises out of or has a substantial connection with a business relationship defendant has purposefully established with California.” Cornelison v. Chaney, 16 Cal.3d 143, 127 Cal.Rptr. 352, 545 P.2d 264, 267 (1976). In 1995, after revisiting the issue of the proper nexus test and surveying other case law, the Supreme Court of California decided to retain its “substantial 27a connection” test as a flexible standard which best interprets the relatedness requirement. The court stated: A claim need not arise directly from the defendant’s forum contacts in order to be sufficiently related to the contact to warrant the exercise of specific jurisdiction. Rather, as long as the claim bears a substantial connection to the nonresident’s forum contacts, the exercise of specific jurisdiction is appropriate. The due process clause is concerned with protecting nonresident defendants from being brought unfairly into court in the forum, on the basis of random contacts. That : constitutional provision, however, does not provide defendants with a shield against jurisdiction when the defendant purposefully has availed himself or herself of benefits in the forum. Vons Companies, supra, 926 P.2d at 1096. See also Domtiar, - Inc. v. Niagara Fire Ins. Co., 533 N.W.2d 25, 31 (Minn. 1995) (“When a claim arises out of a contract that has a ‘substantial connection’ with the forum state, specific jurisdiction exists.” (citing McGee, supra note 8, 355 U.S. at 223, 78 S.Ct. 199)). The Supreme Court of Connecticut also articulated a flexible or less restrictive reasonably foreseeable standard in Thomason, supra, declaring: i ik tlle sii al eee The words “arising out of” ... must be interpreted in a manner that reconciles the legislative decision to impose some limits on constitutionally permitted jurisdiction with its decision not to require a causal connection between the defendant’s solicitation here and the plaintiffs’ lawsuit. Our interpretation is as follows. For purposes of [the applicable Connecticut long-arm statutory provision], a plaintiff's “cause of action aris[es] ... Out of ... business solicited in this state” if. at the time the defendant engaged in solicitation in Connecticut, it was reasonably foreseeable that, as a result of that 28a solicitation, the defendant could be sued in Connecticut by a solicited person on a cause of action similar to that now being brought by the plaintiffs. 661 A.2d at 603. Based upon our review of nexus tests used in other jurisdictions, the criticisms leveled at some of them, and the Supreme Court’s admonition that there are no “mechanical tests” or “talismanic formulas” for the determination of personal jurisdiction, we see no reason to deviate from—and thus we reaffirm—our past decisions which have interpreted the “arise from” language of § 13-423(b) flexibly and synonymously with “relate to” or having a “substantial connection with,” in the same way that the Supreme Court’s due process analysis has used these terms interchangeably. This means that, for the Superior Court to have jurisdiction over Ms. Moreno’s claim, the claim had to be related to or substantially connected with Shoppers’ advertising activity in the District, Cohane, supra, 385 A.2d at 158; Berwyn, supra, 399 A.2d at 80; that is, as we said in 7rerotola, supra, 601 A.2d at 64, it had to have some “discernible relationship” to Shoppers’ advertising activity. | Where Shoppers has deliberately and directly solicited District residents to become customers in its Maryland and Virginia stores, there can be no doubt that its advertising relates to or has a discernible relationship to a claim by a District resident who becomes a customer in one of Shoppers’ stores and is injured. This is true because it is reasonably foreseeable that, as a result of advertising extensively and over a substantial period of time in the District’s major circulation newspaper, Shoppers could be sued in the District on a claim similar to that filed by Ms. Moreno. See 7homason, supra, 661 A.2d at 603. The trial court found that Shoppers “owns numerous stores in Maryland and Virginia, several of which are located within a few miles of the District of Columbia border.” The trial court also determined that Shoppers “contracts with and advertises in 29a [T]he Washington Post [and the Yellow Pages], thereby targeting and soliciting customers in the District of Columbia area.” In doing so, it “voluntarily availed itself of the privileges and protections of the District of Columbia ...” Accordingly, the trial court concluded, Shoppers’ ”contacts with the [District] were of such quality and nature that it is reasonable for [it] to reasonably anticipate being haled into court in the District of Columbia.” Shoppers contends that in this case the nexus requirement is not satisfied because there is no inherent relationship between the duty breached (to provide a safe store) and the “transaction” of advertising in the District of Columbia media. Under this reading of the nexus requirement, Ms. Moreno would have to show something akin to false advertising by Shoppers. But since we require only a showing of a “discernible relationship” between the particular claim and the business transacted, Shoppers imposes too heavy a burden. Trerotola, 601 A.2d at 64. The record reveals extensive and repeated advertising by Shoppers in The Washington Post. In light of such advertising, Ms. Moreno’s case is dissimilar to those in which plaintiffs based their jurisdictional claims on a single advertisement, or sporadic advertising from a travel agency located far from the forum state. See, e. g., Crocker v. Hilton Int'l Barbados, Lid., 976 F.2d 797, 799 (1st Cir. 1992); Witbeck v. Bill Cody's Ranch Inn, 147 Mich.App. 587, 383 N.W.2d 253, 256 (1985), rev'd, 428 Mich. 659, 411 N.W.2d 439, 445 (1987). Consistent with the trial court’s conclusion, we hold that the trial court properly exercised jurisdiction in this matter because appellant, through its extensive advertising activity in a major District of Columbia newspaper purposefully and deliberately solicited District residents as customers for its nearby Maryland and Virginia stores and_ thus transacted business in the District; and further, because Ms. Moreno’s claim was related to or had a discernible relationship to its 30a advertising, Shoppers could have reasonably anticipated being haled into court to defend against a personal injury suit brought by a District resident. In short, Ms. Moreno met the requirements of § 13-423(b). Shoppers’ Fear of Virtually Unlimited Jurisdiction In its final argument Shoppers’ raises the specter of “virtually unlimited jurisdiction in the District over businesses and claims with little or no relationship to the District.” This is an argument without support in fact or law. World-Wide Volkswagen, supra, made clear that “the foreseeability that is critical ... is that the defendant’s conduct and connection with the forum State are such that he should reasonably anticipate being haled into court there.” 444 U.S. at 297, 100 S.Ct. 559. Under our fact-driven analysis in this specific jurisdiction case, while Shoppers’ advertising solicitation of customers from the District will support a slip and fall injury claim, vendors who sell their produce to Shoppers’ stores—or, for that matter, a Shoppers’ employee who slips and falls in a company warehouse in Maryland—are not within the class solicited by Shoppers’ extensive advertising in The Washington Post. Moreover, non-directed Internet advertising might present a different factual situation from the one before us. See E-Data Corp. v. Micropatent Corp., 989 F.Supp. 173, 177 (D.Conn. 1997) (defendant’s Internet advertising that had “the potential to reach ... Connecticut consumers” was insufficient as a basis for personal jurisdiction because “hundreds of thousands of Web sites [existed] on the Internet”). “[W)here a defendant who purposefully has directed [its] activities at forum residents seeks to defeat jurisdiction, [it] must present a compelling case that the presence of some other considerations would render jurisdiction unreasonable.” Burger King, supra, 471 U.S. at 477, 105 S.Ct. 2174. Shoppers has not presented a compelling case that the District now will exercise unlimited jurisdiction over businesses. 3la Judge Schwelb’s dissent, for its part, appears to depend entirely on the distinction between Ms. Moreno and a hypothetical plaintiff who could testify, “Yes, I’ve seen Shoppers’ ads, they’ve got great prices!” Such testimony presumably would support the inference he believes necessary that the plaintiff was actually induced to visit a Shoppers store by the advertising. Insistence on whether the plaintiff saw the ads in question shifts the focus of the due process inquiry away from where the Supreme Court has placed it, on the defendant’s actions. Furthermore, it minimizes the importance and purpose of the long-arm statute, which we have always understood to afford District residents broad access to our courts limited only by due process considerations. Accordingly, for the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. So ordered. WAGNER, Chief Judge, dissenting: The mere fact that a foreign corporation advertises for business within the District Columbia is insufficient under our long-arm statute for our local court to exercise personal jurisdiction over that corporation for claims unrelated to that advertising which arise wholly in the foreign state.’ Since the majority appears to hold otherwise, I respectfully dissent. In order for the District of Columbia Courts to properly assert personal jurisdiction over a foreign corporation, “service of process over the nonresident must be authorized by statute and ' There is no contention in this case that the court’s jurisdiction derives from D.C.Code § 13-334 (1995) (authorizing service upon a foreign corporation doing business in the District of Columbia or transacting business in the District arising out “of contracts entered into or to be performed, in whole or in part, in the District of Columbia or growing out of any tort committed in the District”), or D.C.Code § 13-422 (pertaining to jurisdiction over corporations organized under the laws of. or maintaining a principal place of business in the District, as to any claim). 32a be within the confines of the due process clause of the United States Constitution.” Cohane v. Arpeja-California, Inc., 385 A.2d 153, 158 (D.C.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 980, 99 S.Ct. 567, 58 L.Ed.2d 651 (1978) (citing /nternational Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945)). The statutory provisions at issue here are D.C.Code §§ 13-423(a)(1) and -423(b) (long-arm statute).* There is no real dispute in this case that Shoppers Food Warehouse’s (Shoppers’) advertisements for customers within the District were sufficient minimum activities to meet the “transacting business” requirement of § 423(a)(1). See 7rerotola v. Cotter, 601 A.2d 60, 63 (D.C.1991) (citing Cohane, 385 A.2d at 158).> What divides the court is whether the further condition imposed by § i13-423(b) is satisfied. I agree with my dissenting colleagues that it is not. Section 423(b) bars the exercise of jurisdiction over a foreign corporation where the claim is unrelated to the business transacted in the District by the corporation. See 7rerotola, 601 A.2d at 63. In other words, under this section, “jurisdiction is limited to claims arising from the particular transaction of business which provides the basis for jurisdiction.” Cdhane, 385 A.2d at 158 (citing D.C.Code § 13- 423(b)). Ms. Moreno’s claim arose out of injuries she ? The long-arm statute, § 13-423 provides in pertinent part: (a) A District of Columbia court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a person, who acts directly or by an agent, as to a claim for relief arising from the person’s - (1) transacting any business in the District of Columbia; * * * (b) When jurisdiction over a person is based solely upon this section, only a claim for relief arising from acts enumerated in this section may be asserted against him. > “Under § 13-423(a)(1), less of a nexus between the defendant and the District of Columbia is required for a finding of jurisdiction than would be required under the ‘doing business’ test used to determine corporate presence.” Cohane, supra, 385 A.2d at 158 (citation omitted). 33a sustained in an accident which occurred in Shoppers’ Maryland store as a result of Shoppers’ negligent act or omission in the State of Maryland. There is simply no relationship here between Shoppers’- advertisements in the District and Shoppers’ alleged tortious conduct which caused Ms. Moreno to slip and fall in Maryland as required by our statute. To accept the contrary position would render the limitation imposed by § 423(b) a nullity. That we have “interpreted this Statute as permitting the exercise of personal jurisdiction over nonresident defendants to the extent permitted by the due process clause,”* does not eliminate the requirement that the courts of this jurisdiction adhere to the process due under our statute. That process, as set forth in our long-arm statute, provides in § 423(a)(1) and (b) a specific basis for the court’s -exercise of personal jurisdiction over a foreign corporation. The exercise of that jurisdiction must conform to:the statute and be consistent with due process. See Trerotola, 601 A.2d at 64; Cohane, 385 A.2d at 158. Under § 13- 423(b), unless the claim “has a discernible relationship to the ‘business’ transacted in the District[,] ... asserted jurisdiction exceeds the limits of the due process clause of the Constitution.” Trerotola, 601 A.2d at 64 (citing Cohane, 385 A.2d at 158). Here, there was only the fortuity of Ms. Moreno having an accident in a store in Maryland belonging to Shoppers, a foreign corporation which happens to advertise for customers in a daily newspaper which is distributed in the metropolitan area. Her cause of action neither arises out of. nor is it related to Shoppers’ advertising activities. For these reasons, and essentially for those set forth in Judge Schwelb’s dissenting opinion, I respectfully dissent from the opinion of the court. SCHWELB, Associate Judge, with whom STEADMAN, Associate Judge, joins, dissenting: “ Cohane, supra, 385 A.2d at 158. 34a When this case was before the division, I explained in some detail why, in my view, Ms. Moreno has failed to establish that her claim “ar[ose] from” Shoppers’ contacts with the District of Columbia. See Shoppers Food Warehouse v. Moreno, 715 A2d 107, 112-16 (DC.1998) (Moreno !) (dissenting opinion) I pointed out that “[s]o far as we can discern from the record, Ms. Moreno would have suffered the injuries for which she seeks compensation in this action even if Shoppers had not advertised in the District at all.” /d. at 113. The suggestion that Ms. Moreno’s claim “arises from” Shoppers’ advertising, when she would have sustained her injuries even in the absence of a single ad, ascribes a distinctly odd meaning to the rather straightforward statutory language. I continue to adhere to the position I took in Moreno /, and rather than burdening a second volume of the Atlantic 2d Reporter with the same dissenting prose, I incorporate by reference my separate opinion at the division level. Because the en banc majority now invokes the legislative history of our long-arm statute, D.C. Code § 13-423(b) (1995), as well as the case law of certain other jurisdictions, I think it appropriate to add the following observations to the views a in my opinion in Moreno | L In its discussion of the issue presently before us, the court surveys a plethora of federal and local decisions, and correctly notes that there is no District of Columbia case “squarely on point.” See maj. op. at 329. But as the majority points out, “[t}he legislative history of the District’s long arm statute makes it clear that it was Congress’ intent to provide the _ District with a long-arm statute equivalent in scope to those already in effect in Maryland and Virginia.” /d. at 326 (quoting Environmental Research Int'l Inc. v. Lockwood Greene Engineers, Inc., 355 A.2d 808, 810 (D.C.1976) (en banc)). The legislature having focused on Maryland and Virginia, we should surely explore the construction by courts in these 35a neighboring jurisdictions of the statutes on which our own legisiation was based. Maryland’s specific jurisdiction long-arm statute is identical to the District’s in all material respects. See Md. Code Ann. Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 6-103 (1994). The Maryland Court of Appeals has stated that in enacting the statute, the legislature intended “to expand the exercise of personal jurisdiction to the limits allowed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.” Camelback Ski Corp. v. Behning, 307 Md. 270, 513 A.2d 874, 876 (1986) (Camelback I), vacated and remanded on other grounds, 480 U.S. 901, 107 S.Ct. 1341, 94 L.Ed2d 512 (1987). The exercise of specific jurisdiction is permissible in Maryland if the suit arises out of, or is directly related to, the defendant’s activities in the state. See Camelback Ski Corp. v. Behning, 312 Md. 330, 539 A.2d 1107, 1111 (1988) (Camelback II), accord, Presbyterian Univ. Hosp. v. Wilson, 337 Md. 541, 654 A.2d 1324, 1329-30 (1995); Talegen Corp. v. Signet Leasing and Fin. Corp., 104 Md. App. 663, 657 A.2d 406, 410-11 (1995); Piracci v. New York City Employees’ Retirement Sys., 321 F.Supp. 1067, 1072 (D.Md. 1971).' Although the Maryland cases do not specifically decide the question presented to us here, I think it unlikely that, in the absence even of a “but for” connection between Shoppers’ advertising and Ms. Moreno’s accident, the Maryland courts would conclude either that the plaintiffs injury “arose from” Shoppers’ activities in the District or that it was “directly related” to them. ‘In Camelback I, 513 A.2d at 881 n. 7, the court left open the questions whether the terms “arising out of’ and “related to” have different meanings and, if they do, whether specific jurisdiction may be asserted where the plaintiff's claim relates to, but does not arise out of, the defendant’s activities in Maryland. / 36a Ms. Moreno’s prospects would be even less promising under Virginia law. That state’s long-arm statute is also identical to the corresponding District provision in all material respects. See Virginia Code § 8.01- 328.1(A)-(B) (1992). In construing the extent of in personam jurisdiction under Virginia’s long-arm statute, the Supreme Court of Virginia, much like its counterparts in the District and in Maryland, has [Text truncated at 120,000 characters. The full text is on the page linked above.] --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/brief%3Amicro_IA40386014_0955%3A1. Public record. Not legal advice.