Whether Defendants can contest personal jurisdiction as non-domiciliaries when they moved out of New York without notifying the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles, in violation of Vehicle and Traffic Law § 505(5).

Yes. The Court can only exert personal jurisdiction over a defendant where a constitutionally adequate connection exists between the defendant, the state, and the action. The Defendants' violation of Vehicle and Traffic Law § 505(5) does not estop Defendants from asserting the absence of such a connection.

In 1992, Plaintiff, domiciled in Connecticut, and one of the Defendants were allegedly involved in a traffic accident in Vermont. The second Defendant was the first Defendant's father and the owner of the vehicle, and at the time of the accident, both Defendants were domiciled in New York. Plaintiff filed a summons and complaint in December of 1994 relying upon the information provided at the time of the accident which included New York addresses for both Defendants. In February and July 1994, however, the two Defendants moved to North Carolina without providing notice under New York's Vehicle and Traffic Law § 505(5) which requires anyone licensed in New York to notify the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles "of any change of residence of such licensee within ten days after such change occurs."

Plaintiff filed a summons and complaint against defendants in Supreme Court, New York County relying on the information that Defendant had provided in the accident report as to her and her father's New York addresses. The Appellate Division found that it had no personal jurisdiction over Defendants because Plaintiff made no attempt to serve Defendants at the New York addresses that they supplied in the accident report. In March 1995 Plaintiff served process on Defendants in Charlotte, North Carolina, yet Defendants failed to answer and Plaintiff moved for default judgment. Defendants then moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction. The Supreme Court granted this motion and dismissed the complaint, and the Appellate Division affirmed.

The Court of Appeals affirmed, also finding that personal jurisdiction did not exist. The Court recognized that personal jurisdiction requires both service of process and the power of a court over a party to enforce judicial decrees. Indeed, service of process alone cannot vest a court with jurisdiction over a non-domiciliary served outside New York State. Instead, there must be a constitutionally adequate connection between the defendant, the state, and the action. In addition, because the accident occurred in Vermont, New York's long arm statute does not give the state personal jurisdiction.

An application of the Vehicle and Traffic Law in order to obtain personal jurisdiction mistakes the service component with the jurisdictional basis component. Defendants' failure to notify the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles does not affect this lack of jurisdictional basis. The violation of the statute does not estop defendants from protesting personal jurisdiction due to the absence of a jurisdictional basis. Finally, the Court distinguished this case from Pumarejo-Garcia v. McDonough, 242 A.D.2d 374, upon which Plaintiff's relied, involving Vehicle and Traffic Law § 505(5), where the defendant was estopped from objecting to jurisdiction based on failure of service because that case did not turn on the existence of a jurisdictional basis.