Intermeat, Inc. v. American Poultry Incorporated and a & W Foods

GURFEIN, Circuit Judge:

This appeal requires us to consider for the first time the effect of the constitutional rule announced in Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U.S. 186, 97 S.Ct. 2569, 53 L.Ed.2d 683 (1977), on the New York law authorizing quasi-in-rem jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant based on the attachment of a debt due to the defendant from a debtor found in New York. N.Y. C.P.L.R. §§ 6202, 5201, 314, 315.

Intermeat, Inc., a New York corporation with its office in Great Neck, New York, brought a suit in New York Supreme Court to recover damages from American Poultry Incorporated, an Ohio…