Differential Targeting of the Forum in Jurisdictional Analysis
The doctrine of “effects” jurisdiction permits a court to exercise personal jurisdiction over a non-resident defendant when the defendant’s activity outside the forum causes harm within it. It is frequently used in e-commerce cases in which a defendant’s website is accessed by consumers nationwide (or indeed globally). One of the elements necessary to establish jurisdiction…
Continue ReadingWashington Supreme Court Requires In-State Property for Recognition of Foreign Judgments
To recognize and enforce a judgment rendered in another jurisdiction, a U.S. court need not have in personam jurisdiction over the judgment debtor. The U.S. Supreme Court observed in Shaffer v. Heitner (1977): Once it has been determined by a court of competent jurisdiction that the defendant is a debtor of the plaintiff, there would…
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 ReadingExtraterritorial Application of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998 to criminalize the circumvention of access controls to copyrighted works. Section 1201 provides: “No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.” Section 1203 allows a person injured by a violation of that provision to sue…
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…
Continue ReadingEnforcement of Arbitral Awards against Russia for Expropriation of Property in Crimea
The D.C. Circuit recently cleared the way for the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards against Russia for the expropriation of electricity and gas infrastructure in Crimea. Russia argued in the case, Stabil v. Russian Federation, that there was no jurisdiction because the arbitration exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) did not apply and…
Continue ReadingEnterprise-Wide Contracts as a Basis for Personal Jurisdiction Over Foreign Parent Companies
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a case in which certain enterprise-wide contracts executed by a (U.S.) corporate plaintiff figured in the analysis of legislative jurisdiction. Today, I want to focus on VMware LLC v. Siemens AG, a case in which certain enterprise-wide contracts executed by a (foreign) corporate defendant figure in the…
Continue ReadingProduct Use Restrictions as a Bar to Personal Jurisdiction
Exploding lithium battery cases against Samsung SDI Company, a South Korean defendant, have raised interesting personal jurisdiction issues. Litigants have not always done a good job of advancing the strongest factual and legal arguments, as a recent decision from the Fifth Circuit, Ethridge v. Samsung, makes clear. The cases, including B.D. by & through Myers…
Continue ReadingThe Many Uses of the Choice-of-Law Clause
In prior posts, I have written about the things that a forum selection clause can and cannot do. In this post, I do the same for choice-of-law clauses. Among other things, a choice-of-law clause may be invoked to: Select a law to govern the contract and claims related to the contract; Provide support for the…
Continue ReadingLegislative Control of Personal Jurisdiction—An Opening Door
As every first-year law student learns in Civil Procedure, the Supreme Court constitutionalized the law of personal jurisdiction in Pennoyer v. Neff (1878), holding that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment limits the jurisdiction that state courts may exercise. Legislatures still have roles to play. States enact long-arm statutes to reach non-resident defendants,…
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