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.
D.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…
Continue ReadingEleventh Circuit Applies Fuld in Helms-Burton Case
On July 23, 2026, in Rodriguez v. Imperial Brands, PLC, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld the dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction of claims against two British corporations under the Helms-Burton Act for trafficking in property expropriated by Cuba. The opinion is one of the first by a circuit court…
Continue ReadingThe Good and the Bad of King v. Bon Charge
The Supreme Court’s latest personal jurisdiction decision, Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization (2025), left the lower courts to work out what exactly the Fifth Amendment due process analysis entails. The emerging consensus is that those questions can be avoided as long as the facts of a case meet the preexisting test for personal jurisdiction under…
Continue ReadingPersonal Jurisdiction in Federal Antitrust Litigation Post-Fuld: In re Diisocyanates Litigation
Last year, in Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization, the Supreme Court held that the due process limits of personal jurisdiction under the Fifth Amendment differ from those under the Fourteenth. As Maggie Gardner has noted, the Court didn’t say much about what those limits might be—meaning that the lower federal courts will now take on…
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