## Facts

- Pezetel, Ltd. (Pezetel) and PZL–Świdnik (Swidnik) were Polish corporations that built and sold helicopters, including the Kania product line, and were wholly owned by the government of Poland.
- Pezetel partially owned Melex USA, Inc. (Melex), a Delaware corporation headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina.
- Melex distributed certain Swidnik products in the United States and was listed as a marketing agent for some PZL helicopter products.
- The Polish government leased a Kania-SP-SAC helicopter built by Pezetel and Swidnik to a company in Sierra Leone.
- On or about September 18, 1988, the helicopter departed from Freetown Airport in Sierra Leone and crashed into the Sierra Leone River.
- Two passengers died, and another passenger (a minor) was seriously injured; other occupants survived.
- All plaintiffs and the persons they represented were citizens of Sierra Leone; the named plaintiffs were appointed as executors of the decedents’ estates by the High Court of Sierra Leone.
- Plaintiffs filed a products-liability action in the Eastern District of North Carolina against Pezetel, Swidnik, and Melex, seeking damages for wrongful death and personal injury under negligence, strict liability, and warranty theories.
- Defendants moved to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), lack of personal jurisdiction, and forum non conveniens; defendants also sought summary judgment on jurisdictional grounds.
- Defendants submitted evidence that Pezetel and Swidnik had at one time sold golf carts in the United States, but neither conducted helicopter business in the United States and neither had a U.S. connection tied to the leased helicopter or the crash.
- The record showed Melex had no connection to the specific Kania-SP-SAC involved in the accident and no role in the events leading to the crash.

## Issues

1. Whether Pezetel and Swidnik, as agencies or instrumentalities of the Polish government, were immune from suit under the FSIA or whether an exception (including the commercial-activity exception) applied.
2. Whether Pezetel and Swidnik had sufficient contacts with North Carolina (or the United States) to support personal jurisdiction for claims arising from a crash in Sierra Leone.
3. Whether the court could exercise personal jurisdiction over Melex for claims arising from the crash when Melex had no shown involvement with the helicopter or accident.
4. Whether the case should be dismissed on forum non conveniens grounds because the accident, parties, witnesses, and evidence were centered outside the United States.

## Decision

- The court granted defendants’ motions and dismissed the action.
- The court held that Pezetel and Swidnik were foreign-state instrumentalities and that no FSIA exception applied on these facts; the court therefore lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over them.
- The court also concluded that the asserted U.S./North Carolina contacts did not support personal jurisdiction over Pezetel or Swidnik for claims based on a foreign lease, foreign operation, and foreign crash.
- The court dismissed the claims against Melex because plaintiffs failed to show any case-linked connection between Melex and the Kania-SP-SAC helicopter or the crash sufficient to support jurisdiction or liability.
- The court further found that, even if jurisdictional barriers did not require dismissal, the forum non conveniens factors strongly favored litigation in a foreign forum tied to the accident.

## Legal Principles

- Under the FSIA, foreign states and their agencies or instrumentalities are presumptively immune from suit in U.S. courts unless a statutory exception applies; FSIA immunity is a subject-matter jurisdiction bar.
- The FSIA commercial-activity exception requires a claim to be based on qualifying commercial activity in the United States, an act in the United States connected to foreign commercial activity, or an act abroad connected to commercial activity that causes a direct effect in the United States.
- Unrelated or minor U.S. commerce (such as past sales of non-helicopter products) does not satisfy the FSIA nexus requirement when the alleged tort and injury occurred abroad and are not tied to U.S. commercial conduct.
- Personal jurisdiction requires constitutionally sufficient minimum contacts and a connection between the defendant’s forum-related conduct and the claims; foreign manufacture and foreign injury, without case-linked forum conduct, do not establish specific jurisdiction.
- A domestic affiliate’s presence in the forum does not supply jurisdiction over foreign manufacturers for an overseas accident absent evidence connecting the affiliate to the specific product, transaction, or injury at issue.
- Forum non conveniens permits dismissal when an adequate alternative forum exists and private- and public-interest factors (access to proof, witness availability, local interest, and applicable law) weigh heavily toward a foreign forum.

## Conclusion

In *Bahsoon v. Pezetel, Ltd.*, the Eastern District of North Carolina dismissed Sierra Leone plaintiffs’ wrongful-death and injury claims arising from a Sierra Leone helicopter crash because the Polish state-owned manufacturers were immune under the FSIA and had no case-related U.S. contacts, Melex had no connection to the helicopter or accident, and the dispute was better suited to a foreign forum.


Bahsoon v. Pezetel, Ltd., 768 F. Supp. 507 (1991)