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Utilizing the Changing Landscape of Personal Jurisdiction

Mainbrace (November 2019 - No. 3)

For years, the scope of personal jurisdiction over corporate defendants has expanded significantly through the reliance on tenuous corporate contacts or business conducted by a defendant in a particular forum. Recently, however, that all changed when the United States Supreme Court issued its decisions in Daimler AG v. Bauman, 564 U.S. 915 (2014), BNSF Railway Co. v. Tyrrell, 137 S.Ct. 1549 (2017), and Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court of California, 137 S.Ct. 1773 (2017), which significantly strengthened the requirements for exercising personal jurisdiction over corporate defendants. Combined, these three decisions are critical for corporate entities that find themselves embroiled in maritime litigation, as these cases have significantly limited where plaintiffs can bring claims and, in turn, have substantially curtailed the practice of litigation tourism and forum shopping as a result of the limitations that have been placed on a forum state’s exercise of personal jurisdiction. 

The Big Three: Daimler, Tyrrell, and Bristol-Myers Squibb 
There are two types of personal jurisdiction. The first, known as specific jurisdiction, encompasses cases in which the suit arises out of or relates to the defendant’s contacts with the forum. For specific jurisdiction to exist, a plaintiff’s action must arise out of a defendant’s forum-related activities. The second, general jurisdiction, is exercisable when a foreign corporation’s “continuous corporate operations within a state [are] so substantial and of such a nature as to justify suit against it on causes of action arising from dealings entirely distinct from those activities.” Read More» 

This article by David J. Oberly, associate at Blank Rome, is one in a series of articles written for Blank Rome Maritime's quarterly Mainbrace newsletter. To view the other articles in the November 2019 edition of Mainbrace, please click here.