Article · Litigation

Where Can You Be Sued? Personal Jurisdiction from Pennoyer to the Internet

28 U.S.C. § 1391(b)

Type
Article
Jurisdiction
National
Date
2023-09-07
Topic
Litigation

Personal jurisdiction is the first question in every case and the one most often decided by a doctrine that has changed twice in the last fifteen years. This article traces the arc from Pennoyer's territorial power theory through International Shoe's minimum contacts framework to the modern architecture, and explains what actually changed when Goodyear and Daimler collapsed general jurisdiction to the places a defendant is at home. It works specific jurisdiction element by element, including purposeful availment, the stream of commerce problem the Court has twice failed to resolve, the Calder effects test as narrowed by Walden, and the relatedness requirement that Bristol-Myers Squibb tightened and Ford Motor then loosened by holding that a claim may relate to forum contacts without being caused by them. It takes up Mallory v. Norfolk Southern and the revival of consent-by-registration, which may prove the most consequential jurisdictional development in a generation. It then covers venue including the patent venue rule of TC Heartland, transfer under the three transfer statutes, forum non conveniens, and forum selection clauses after Atlantic Marine, closing with the practical question of how a defendant preserves the defense and how a plaintiff avoids needing it.

Where Can You Be Sued? Personal Jurisdiction from Pennoyer to the Internet

Litigation > Jurisdiction and Venue | Published 7 September 2023 - Updated 26 May 2026 | UpLaw - uplaw.us

In brief. Personal jurisdiction asks whether a court has power over a defendant. Since 1945 the answer has turned on the defendant's contacts with the forum state, sorted into two boxes: general jurisdiction, which permits any claim but is now available essentially only where the defendant is "at home," and specific jurisdiction, which requires that the claim arise out of or relate to the defendant's forum contacts. A third route — consent — was widely assumed dead and was revived in 2023.

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