In this clip, we look at the first step of the analysis: the statutory sources of in
personam jurisdiction. Every state can pass statutes detailing the
situations in which its courts will exercise personal jurisdiction.
When a court exercises personal jurisdiction, it must do so pursuant to an explicit grant
of authority in a state statute or else that court may not exercise personal jurisdiction.
Generally speaking, there are five common statutory sources for in personam jurisdiction:
(1) physical presence in the forum state at the time the defendant is served with process;
(2) domicile; (3) consent; (4) waiver; and (5) long-arm statutes.
Firstly, every state has personal jurisdiction over persons within its territory.
That means that if the defendant is present in the forum state when served with process,
then he will be subject to personal jurisdiction in that state regardless of whether the defendant
is a resident of that state or not. Nor does it matter how long the defendant
had been or intended to be in the state when he was served with process.
In Burnham v. Superior Court of California, 495 U.S. 604 (1990), the Supreme Court held
that a court can exercise jurisdiction over a defendant even if that defendant is only
in the state for a short period of time. Secondly, a defendant is subject to the personal
jurisdiction of his home state. For individuals, "Home state" may be defined
by residence, citizenship and domicile, even if the defendant is absent from the state
at the time of the suit. For corporations, "home state" means the state of incorporation
or where the corporation conducts its principal operations.
Third, a defendant may consent to a court's personal jurisdiction by voluntarily appearing
in the forum state's court and submitting himself to jurisdiction.
Consent can be express, such as through a forum-selection clause in a contract or appointment
of an agent. Consent can also be implied.
In Hess v. Pawloski, 274 U.S. 352 (1927), the Supreme Court upheld as constitutional
a Massachusetts statute stating that a non-resident motorist driving in Massachusetts implicitly
consented to personal jurisdiction there. In addition to consent, a defendant may waive
his challenge to personal jurisdiction. Waiver occurs where the defendant acts in
a way that is inconsistent with his argument that the forum lacks a basis for asserting
personal jurisdiction over him. This might occur where the defendant conducts
discovery or attends and observes proceedings without waiving her objection.
Another way that a court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a defendant is where the
defendant's conduct is within the scope of the forum state's long-arm statute.
After the Supreme Court's decision in International Shoe, which outlined the various criteria
that should be examined in determining whether jurisdiction over a nonresident is proper,
states began to pass laws detailing their own requirements for personal jurisdiction
over nonresidents. These laws became known as long-arm statutes.
A long-arm statute is a state law allowing the state's courts to exercise jurisdiction
over out-of-state or nonresident defendants. Today, every state has a long-arm statute.
Long-arm statutes come in two different flavors: limited (or enumerated) and unlimited (or
unenumerated). New York's long-arm statute, for example,
limits personal jurisdiction over out-of-state defendants to specific circumstances, such
as where the defendant has real property within the state; regularly does business with the
state; or commits a tort within the state. This would be called an enumerated or limited
long-arm statute. In contrast, California's long-arm statute
states simply that "[a] court of this state may exercise jurisdiction on any basis not
inconsistent with the Constitution of this state or of the United States."
This is an example of an unlimited long-arm statute.
If you encounter a test question with a long-arm statute, first you should decide whether the
long-arm statute with which you are confronted is limited or unlimited.
If the long-arm statute is limited, then look first to see whether your particular defendant
falls into one of the enumerated categories. If none of the categories apply, then the
court may not hear the case. If the long-arm statute permits the constitutional maximum,
then simply skip straight to analyzing whether it would be constitutional to exercise personal
jurisdiction over this particular defendant. Always remember that long-arm statutes still
must comply with due process protections under the Fourteenth Amendment.
If the Constitution does not allow for jurisdiction, then the long-arm statute is irrelevant.
It might help to think of the Due Process Clause as a circle. The circle represents
the permissible scope of a court's jurisdiction over a defendant. Anything outside of the
circle would be unconstitutional. California's long-arm statute seeks to capture
everything in the circle. New York's long-arm statute, by contrast,
simply carves out certain areas of the circle. New York has chosen not to exercise personal
jurisdiction over certain defendants even though it would be constitutionally permissible
for it do so. Pretend that New York provides in its long-arm
statute that a New York state court may exercise personal jurisdiction over any out-of-state
defendant who makes a single purchase in New York.
We know from the Supreme Court's decision in Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia, S.
A. v. Hall, 466 U.S. 408 (1984), that mere purchases in a forum state without more is
not sufficient to sustain a finding of minimum contacts.
Therefore, this part of New York's long-arm statute is outside of the limits of the Due
Process Clause. Or in other words, it's outside of the circle.
Remember that just because a state's long-arm statute asserts personal jurisdiction doesn't
mean that it would constitutional to do so under the Due Process Clause. It's critically
important to understand that distinction. So to recap, there are a number of statutory
sources for personal jurisdiction over a defendant: (1) presence in the forum state when served
with process; (2) consent through a forum-selection clause; (3) consent through the appointment
of an agent; (4) consent through conduct in litigation; (5) non-resident motorist statutes;
(6) residence, citizenship, or domicile in the forum state; (7) in the case of corporations,
state of incorporation or principal place of business; (8) ownership of property in
the forum state, provided that the property is the subject of the lawsuit; and (9) long-arm
statutes. Now that we know the statutory requirements
for personal jurisdiction, let's take a brief quiz to test your understanding of these concepts.