Brunkhardt v. Mountain West Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance

Summary

The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed dismissal of the Brunkhardts’ action seeking underinsured motorist benefits from Mountain West Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company for lack of personal jurisdiction. The court held that Mountain West’s limited contacts with Nebraska—including communications responding to claims and knowledge that its insured traveled to Nebraska—resulted from unilateral acts and did not constitute purposeful availment. Accordingly, Mountain West lacked sufficient minimum contacts with Nebraska to satisfy due process.

Holdings

1. Nebraska's long-arm statute extends jurisdiction over nonresidents as far as the federal Constitution permits, so the controlling question was whether Mountain West had sufficient minimum contacts with Nebraska consistent with due process.
2. Mountain West's contacts with Nebraska were insufficient to confer specific personal jurisdiction because they resulted from the unilateral actions of its insureds and other parties, not from Mountain West's purposeful availment of Nebraska.
3. General personal jurisdiction did not exist because Mountain West lacked continuous and systematic general business contacts with Nebraska.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Mountain West had sufficient minimum contacts with Nebraska to permit the exercise of personal jurisdiction over it in the Brunkhardts' action for underinsured motorist benefits.
2. Whether Mountain West's insurance of a Wyoming resident who traveled to Nebraska, its agent's knowledge of that travel, and its communications with Nebraska attorneys constituted purposeful availment of Nebraska's benefits and protections.

Disposition

affirmed