← The hardest concepts in United States law
In one breath
A court can bind a defendant only if the defendant has enough connection with the state where the court sits that making them defend there is consistent with due process. The connection is measured by what the defendant chose to do there and by how closely it relates to the lawsuit, not by where the plaintiff lives or where the harm was felt.
The picture
The harbor and the ship’s captain
A harbor master may call a ship’s captain to account for what happened at the dock only if the captain chose to bring the ship there. A ship that docks regularly, loads cargo and sells goods in a port has made itself answerable there for disputes arising from that trade. A ship blown into the bay by a storm, or one whose cargo a buyer carried in, has chosen nothing.
There is also a second, rarer power. If the port is the ship’s true home, where it is registered and based, the captain answers there for any matter at all. So there are two doors: answer for what you did here, or answer for everything because here is where you live.
Where the picture stops working
The picture stops at fairness: even after a deliberate docking, a court asks whether it is reasonable to make the defendant litigate there. And a ship has no counterpart to being handed court papers while physically present in the state, which still supports jurisdiction (Burnham v. Superior Court, where all the Justices agreed on the result).
How it really works
- 1Begin with the state’s long-arm statute, which must authorize the court to reach this defendant. In many states it reaches as far as the Constitution allows.
- 2Then ask the constitutional question under the Due Process Clause: does the defendant have such minimum contacts with the state that the suit does not offend “traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice”, the phrase from International Shoe?
- 3Sort the case into general or specific jurisdiction. General jurisdiction asks whether the defendant is “at home” in the state: for a person, their domicile; for a corporation, ordinarily its place of incorporation and its principal place of business.
- 4For specific jurisdiction, ask whether the defendant purposefully availed itself of the state, meaning a deliberate reaching into it, and whether the claim arises out of or relates to those contacts. That a product might foreseeably wander there is not enough (World-Wide Volkswagen).
- 5Finally ask about reasonableness: the burden on the defendant, the state’s interest, the plaintiff’s interest in convenient relief. Where the contacts are strong, the defendant must present a compelling case that jurisdiction would still be unreasonable (Burger King).
Why people get it wrong
- Confusing personal jurisdiction with subject-matter jurisdiction (power over the kind of case) and with venue (the proper courthouse within a system that already has power). They are three separate questions.
- Treating the plaintiff’s injury in the state as enough. The contacts that count are the defendant’s own with the state itself, not the defendant’s connection to a plaintiff who happens to live there (Walden v. Fiore).
- Assuming that heavy business everywhere makes a company at home everywhere. Since Daimler AG v. Bauman, general jurisdiction over a corporation is generally confined to where it is at home.
- Reading foreseeability too loosely. What matters is that the defendant’s own conduct toward the state should lead it to expect a suit there, not that harm somewhere is imaginable.
- Forgetting that the objection can be lost by consent or by not raising it in time.
A worked example
The facts are invented
Kestrel Ladders is a company based in the invented state of Alder. It sells ladders to stores in Alder and the neighboring state of Cobb. It has no stores, agents or advertising in the state of Birch. A customer in Alder takes a Kestrel ladder on vacation to Birch, falls, and sues Kestrel in a Birch court.
Birch has no general jurisdiction over Kestrel, which is at home in Alder. Specific jurisdiction fails too: Kestrel never reached into Birch, and the ladder arrived only because a customer carried it, as with the car in World-Wide Volkswagen. Had Kestrel advertised in Birch and shipped to distributors there, a Birch court could hear a claim arising from those sales, because Kestrel would have chosen that market.
Try it
A company incorporated in State A, with its headquarters there, runs stores and sells heavily in State B. A customer injured by its product in State C, where the company does nothing, sues in State B’s courts. The claim has no link to State B. Can State B’s courts hear it against a non-consenting company?
Landmark authorities
Read the sources themselves; this list is a starting point.
- International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310 (1945)
- World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286 (1980)
- Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462 (1985)
- Burnham v. Superior Court, 495 U.S. 604 (1990)
- Walden v. Fiore, 571 U.S. 277 (2014)
- Daimler AG v. Bauman, 571 U.S. 117 (2014)
Where to go next
Case briefs
More hard concepts in United States law
- The Erie doctrine (Civil procedure)
- Claim preclusion and issue preclusion (Civil procedure)
This page is an educational overview. It is not legal advice and not a substitute for the sources: the statute, the rule, the case itself. United States law is made in fifty states and in the federal system, and the rules differ between them. Each page states the usual formulation of the rule and names landmark decisions; your own state, circuit or course may use different wording. Check the primary sources before relying on any rule.