The Court held that the personal jurisdiction analysis under the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause differs from that under the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause. The personal jurisdiction provisions of the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act of 2019 (PSJVTA) do not violate the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause because the statute reasonably ties the assertion of jurisdiction to conduct involving the United States and implicating sensitive foreign policy matters within the prerogative of the political branches.
New Scholarship on Personal Jurisdiction and the FSIA
A short forthcoming article by Robert Dorhman examines the use of the test from Bancec (First National City Bank v. Banco Para El Comercio Exerior de Cuba) to resolve various questions that arise under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). Dohrman quite right to point out that the Bancec test, which was originally developed to…
Continue ReadingForeign States, Personal Jurisdiction, and the FSIA
A U.S. gas company has sued four Russian defendants in the Southern District of New York for seizing helium containers that the gas company had sent to Russia pursuant to a helium supply contract. One of the defendants, RusChemAlliance (RCA), moved to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The case is unusual because the plaintiff…
Continue ReadingThe Extraterritorial Authority of U.S. States
There is one sentence in Fuld v. PLO (2025) that has always bothered me: that “The Constitution confers upon the Federal Government—and it alone—both nationwide and extraterritorial authority.” This statement is demonstrably wrong, so much so that I was easily convinced by colleagues that it did not need direct refutation. And yet that sentence has…
Continue ReadingD.C. Circuit Holds Fuld Does Not Apply to District of Columbia
In July, the D.C. Circuit (Judge Justin Walker) held that the local courts of the District of Columbia are still constrained by the minimum contacts test for personal jurisdiction derived from International Shoe Co. v. Washington (1945) and not by the “more flexible” test permitted by the Fifth Amendment after Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization…
Continue ReadingD.C. Circuit on Personal Jurisdiction in Foreign-Cubed Cases
The D.C. Circuit (Judge Patricia Millet) recently grappled with the limits of federal personal jurisdiction in a suit between foreign parties regarding events that took place outside the United States. In Gligorov v. Nation of Brunei, the court affirmed the dismissal of RICO claims against three corporate defendants for lack of personal jurisdiction. The opinion…
Continue ReadingFurther Thoughts on Personal Jurisdiction for Helms-Burton Act Claims
Last week, Bill Dodge reported on the Eleventh Circuit’s recent decision in Rodriguez v. Imperial Brands, PLC, in which the court dismissed Helms-Burton Act claims against two British defendants for lack of personal jurisdiction. Bill critiqued the court’s application of Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization (2025), but not the decision’s ultimate outcome. The difficulty with…
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