Supreme Court lets out-of-state suit stay in Missouri

The Missouri Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that, under certain circumstances, lawsuits with out-of-state injuries, out-of-state plaintiffs and out-of-state defendants can be heard in any Missouri circuit court.

The decision allows a malpractice lawsuit filed against a former Overland Park, Kansas, lawyer to proceed in Jackson County Circuit Court. The suit, brought by Heartland Title Services, a Florida company once based in Kansas, alleges that Hasty allowed an earlier lawsuit filed in Kansas to be dismissed.

Lawyers for Paul Hasty and his law firm, Hasty & Associates, had argued that the case shouldn’t be heard in Missouri at all because it had no “nexus”

with the state. But the Supreme Court unanimously said the trial judge, Kevin Harrell, was wrong to dismiss the suit on that basis. Such an argument “confuses the requirements for venue with the requirements of jurisdiction,” the court said.

Under Missouri law, venue is generally where the injury takes place. In the case of an out-of-state corporation, it’s where its registered agent is located. But Hasty’s law firm didn’t have an agent in Missouri, although Hasty frequently practiced in the state prior to his suspension last year.

No Missouri statute says where a suit is supposed to be heard under those circumstances, presenting what is sometimes called a “venue gap.” But the Supreme Court said that doesn’t mean Missouri courts can’t hear the case.

Hasty’s lawyers had not contested Missouri courts’ jurisdiction — that is, the court system’s authority to hear the case. Jurisdiction is separate from venue, which is merely the proper place for a court to hear the case, assuming it has jurisdiction. As a result, the case could have been filed in any Missouri court, though the plaintiff chose Jackson County.

“To interpret [Section] 508.010’s silence as barring venue in any Missouri county in which the circuit court’s jurisdiction is not contested would lead to the absurd result of precluding a forum to a party in which a Missouri court has subject matter jurisdiction of the case and personal jurisdiction over the defendant,” Judge Zel M. Fischer wrote.

The opinion affirms a similar ruling two years ago in the Missouri Court of Appeals Western District. State ex rel. Neville v. Grate involved an ATV ride that started in Missouri but ended in a fatal crash on the Kansas side of the state line. All the plaintiffs and defendants also were in Kansas. The suit, however, was filed in Jackson County, and the appeals court said that because there was no venue law limiting it to being heard in a particular county, the case could be heard in any county.

The ruling in Hasty’s case comes just 20 days after oral arguments. That same week in September, the Supreme Court heard arguments in an injury lawsuit against Norfolk Southern that presents the opposite legal issue. The venue for the suit is clear, but the railroad contests Missouri’s jurisdiction, as the worker allegedly was injured in Indiana and never worked in Missouri. The appeal in that case remains pending.

Tuesday’s case is State ex rel. Heartland Title Services Inc. v. Harrell, SC95377.