Allegedly Flawed Service Overlooked Under CPLR 5304 Where Defendant Agreed by Contract that English Courts Would Have Jurisdiction Over Disputes and Defendant Had “Fair Notice” of the Lawsuit/Motion for Judgment In Lieu of Complaint Granted
The Court of Appeals determined summary judgment in lieu of complaint should have been granted to the plaintiff. Under the terms of a contract to provide wholesale seafood, the parties agreed the courts of England would have exclusive jurisdiction over disputes. The defendant was served in England and defaulted, but argued in opposition to the summary judgment motion in New York that the person upon whom the documents were served was not authorized to accept service. The Court of Appeals held that service was sufficient under CPLR 5304 because the defendant had agreed by contract that the English courts have jurisdiction and the defendant had “fair notice” of the lawsuit:
Although CPLR article 53 generally provides that a foreign judgment will not be enforced in New York if the foreign court did not have personal jurisdiction over the defendant (CPLR 5304[a][2]), an exception may be made if, “prior to the commencement of the proceedings [defendant] had agreed to submit to the jurisdiction of the foreign court with respect to the subject matter involved” (CPLR 5305[3]) and was afforded fair notice of the foreign court proceeding that gave rise to the judgment. We applied this principle in Galliano [15 NY3d 75], where we explained that enforcement of a foreign judgment is not repugnant to our notion of fairness if defendant was a party to a contract in which the parties agreed that disputes would be resolved in the courts of a foreign jurisdiction and defendant was aware of the ongoing litigation in that jurisdiction but neglected to appear and defend. We clarified that, so long as the exercise of jurisdiction by the foreign court does not offend due process, the judgment should be enforced without “microscopic analysis” of the underlying proceedings … . Landauer Limited v Monani Fish Co Inc, 27, CtApp 2-25-14
