Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Jurisdiction

By: Derek Hawkins//June 21, 2017//

Jurisdiction

By: Derek Hawkins//June 21, 2017//

Listen to this article

United States Supreme Court

Case Name: Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California, et al

Case No.: 16-466

Focus: Jurisdiction

California courts lack specific jurisdiction to entertain the nonresidents’ claims.

“The personal jurisdiction of state courts is “subject to review for compatibility with the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.” Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S. A. v. Brown, 564 U. S. 915, 918. This Court’s decisions have recognized two types of personal jurisdiction: general and specific. For general jurisdiction, the “paradigm forum” is an “individual’s domicile,” or, for corporations, “an equivalent place, one in which the corporation is fairly regarded as at home.” Id., at 924. Specific jurisdiction, however, requires “the suit” to “aris[e] out of or relat[e] to the defendant’s contacts with the forum.” Daimler, supra, at ___ (internal quotation marks omitted). The “primary concern” in assessing personal jurisdiction is “the burden on the defendant.” World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U. S. 286, 292. Assessing this burden obviously requires a court to consider the practical problems resulting from litigating in the forum, but it also encompasses the more abstract matter of submitting to the coercive power of a State that may have little legitimate interest in the claims in question. At times, “the Due Process Clause, acting as an instrument of interstate federalism, may . . . divest the State of its power to render a valid judgment.” Id., at 294”

Reversed and remanded

Dissenting: Sotomayor

Concurring:

Full Text


Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.

Polls

Should Steven Avery be granted a new evidentiary hearing?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Legal News

See All Legal News

WLJ People

Sea all WLJ People

Opinion Digests