Personal Jurisdiction Gone Wrong: Barring U.S. Consumers from Suing Foreign Carmakers for Design Defects
The U.S. Supreme Court has twice emphasized (most recently in 2021) that the ability to sue a carmaker where the plaintiff lives and was injured is a quintessential exercise of personal jurisdiction. In Sellers v. Volkswagen AG, a Mississippi resident injured in Mississippi sued Volkswagen in Mississippi. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District…
Continue ReadingA Primer on Forum Non Conveniens
Under the doctrine of forum non conveniens, a judge may dismiss a case on the understanding that the case would be better heard in another sovereign’s court. It is a judge-made discretionary doctrine that can be invoked even if the court otherwise has proper jurisdiction over the case. This primer describes the current federal doctrine…
Continue ReadingUsing TLB To Teach Transnational Litigation
One of our goals in creating TLB was to compile a set of educational resources for students and teachers. As we gear up for a new academic year, we will be running a series of posts highlighting TLB content that may be useful to professors of Civil Procedure, Foreign Relations Law, International Business Transactions (IBT),…
Continue ReadingThrowback Thursday: The Human Rights of Foreign Sailors
Litigation in U.S. courts involving gross misconduct committed outside the United States by non-U.S. actors did not begin with the revival of the Alien Tort Statute in the 1980s. In the earlier era of global trade that centered around maritime commerce, U.S. admiralty courts at times remedied—often with moral outrage—wrongs committed on the high seas….
Continue ReadingSupreme Court Round-Up, OT 2021
Transnational litigation has been a persistent, if small, part of the Supreme Court’s docket in the Roberts Court. With the Supreme Court now on its summer break, here is a summary of TLB’s coverage of October Term 2021 cases, which included important decisions on choice of law and federalism and on discovery for use in…
Continue ReadingWhen the U.S. Sues Foreign Manufacturers
What if Robert Nicastro had been the U.S. Government? After J. McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro, U.S. citizens harmed by products manufactured by foreign companies may not be able to sue in U.S. courts for lack of personal jurisdiction. In United States v. Aquatherm GmBH, a foreign manufacturer had similarly structured its sales into the…
Continue ReadingThrowback Thursday: The Legacy of Paxton Blair
Paxton Blair, a New York attorney practicing in the 1920s, has influenced American law to an extent most law professors can only dream of. His 1929 Columbia Law Review article, The Doctrine of Forum Non Conveniens in Anglo-American Law, introduced the term “forum non conveniens” to the United States. (As he noted, only a few…
Continue ReadingHow Do Federal Courts Treat Foreign Parallel Litigation?
The Supreme Court has not explained how federal judges should evaluate parallel litigation in foreign courts. If the same parties are litigating the same issues before a foreign tribunal, should the federal court stay its hand? Or should it proceed until one or the other of the cases results in a judgment? The traditional European…
Continue ReadingForeign Defendants and the Future of Personal Jurisdiction
The Supreme Court recently granted certiorari in yet another personal jurisdiction case (the eighth such case in just over ten years). Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Rwy. Co. has no transnational facts, but it is highly relevant for the future of transnational litigation in U.S. courts. Corporate registration statutes, like the one being challenged in Mallory,…
Continue ReadingU.S. Courts Gut Key Provision of U.N. Convention Against Corruption
In March, both the Sixth and the Seventh Circuits affirmed forum non conveniens dismissals of suits brought by Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS), Mexico’s main social service agency, against U.S. corporations for their alleged bribery of Mexican government officials. IMSS had argued that the U.N. Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) guarantees it the option of…
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