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Zinc Nacional, S.A. v. Bouché Trucking, Inc.

In this negligence case, the court must decide whether a non-resident defendant had minimum contacts with Texas for purposes of establishing specific jurisdiction by using a third-party trucking service to transport its goods through Texas to an out-of-state customer. The court concluded that it did not. It has no offices, employees, agents or representatives in Texas, nor does it advertise or market its paper products here. As such, appellant lacks the minimum contacts with Texas necessary to establish specific jurisdiction. Texas Supreme Court, No. 09-0734, 04-09-2010

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In this negligence case, we must decide whether a non-resident defendant had minimum contacts with Texas for purposes of establishing specific jurisdiction by using a third-party trucking service to transport its goods through Texas to an out-of-state customer. We conclude that it did not. Accordingly, we reverse the court of appeals’ judgment, 296 S.W.3d 763, and remand to that court for consideration of respondent’s alternative jurisdictional argument.

Zinc Nacional, S.A., is a Mexican company that primarily manufactures zinc sulfate and zinc oxide. It has 260 customers worldwide, thirty in the United States and three or four in Texas. It also receives raw materials from suppliers in Texas. A few years ago, Zinc began manufacturing grayback paper for use in drywall manufacturing. It has only three customers for its grayback paper, two in Mexico and one – American Gypsum – in New Mexico. Zinc is not a Texas resident and maintains no offices in Texas. It has no employees, agents, or representatives in Texas, nor does it advertise or market its paper product here. Zinc contracts with a Mexican company, C.H. Robinson de Mexico, for transportation of its products throughout Mexico and the United States.

Zinc focuses on selling its paper product to drywall-manufacturing plants located in New Mexico, Nevada, and Florida. American Gypsum in New Mexico has been a customer of Zinc’s paper product for the past seven years. Zinc ships two to three loads to American Gypsum a week. In December 1999, Zinc loaded eight rolls of grayback paper onto a C.H. Robinson trailer in Monterrey, Mexico, pursuant to a purchase order from American Gypsum. C.H. Robinson trucked the load from Monterrey, Mexico, to Laredo, Texas. The purchase order specified that the shipping terms were “F.O.B. Mid-Bridge Laredo.” The shipment was then picked up in Laredo by Bouché Trucking, Inc., a Texas corporation that had been subcontracted by C.H. Robinson to transport the product to New Mexico.*fn1

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