Tag in Jurisdiction Analysis

Every personal jurisdiction problem about an individual defendant should start with one question about one moment: was the defendant personally served with process while physically and voluntarily present in the forum state?¹ Under Burnham v. Superior Court, a yes answers the constitutional question even when the visit was brief and the claim has nothing to do with it. The long-arm statute and the minimum-contacts test, which normally occupy most of the analysis, both fall away. The long-arm statute is irrelevant when the defendant is served inside the forum, and the court need not look for minimum contacts, because presence at the moment of service is treated as their equivalent.² The same holds when the suit has no connection to any of the defendant's in-state activities: a claim that would otherwise demand general jurisdiction is satisfied by delivery of the papers alone.³

Tag is only one route to jurisdiction over an individual, and placing it correctly in the sequence is much of the skill the problem tests. The lead opinion in J. McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro lists the ways a person may submit to a state's authority: explicit consent, presence within the state when suit commences through service of process, and citizenship or domicile.⁴ Each supports general jurisdiction, which lets the state resolve matters that originated inside it and matters based on activities and events elsewhere. A more limited form of submission, specific jurisdiction, covers disputes that arise out of or connect with the defendant's activities within the state.⁵ A claim unrelated to the forum is therefore not automatically out of reach of an individual defendant, but the plaintiff needs one of three things: the defendant's domicile in the forum, the defendant's consent to suit there, or service while the defendant is physically present.⁶

Tag goes first because it is the cheapest question to answer. Whether the defendant was handed the papers inside the forum is a fact about a single moment, and a yes ends the analysis on any claim. Every other basis costs more work. Specific jurisdiction requires tying the claim to the defendant's voluntary forum contacts, and general jurisdiction through domicile requires showing that the defendant is at home in the forum.⁷ The bases are independent, so a defendant served in the forum is within the court's power whether or not the claim also arises from forum contacts. Starting with tag spares you a contacts inquiry that could not change the result.

Exam Analysis Steps

Because each question either ends the problem or sends it to the next basis, run the analysis as a fixed sequence, with tag at the front and the contacts-based bases at the back.

Ask whether the defendant is a natural person. Tag is a rule about individuals; a corporation is tested by its own ties to the forum, and for general jurisdiction that means where it is incorporated and where it has its principal place of business.⁸
Ask whether the defendant was personally served inside the forum. Delivery outside the state gives notice but supplies no jurisdictional basis.⁹
Ask whether the defendant chose to be in the forum when served. The analysis assumes voluntary presence, and the cases that apply tag involve defendants who came into the state of their own accord.
Check the limits. Did the plaintiff lure or force the defendant into the state in order to serve the papers, and does the defendant enjoy some other immunity from service, such as the one that protects participants in litigation?¹⁰
If every answer so far supports tag, conclude that the court has jurisdiction over the defendant on any claim, without a long-arm or minimum-contacts analysis.
If tag fails, ask whether the defendant is domiciled in the forum or has consented, including by accepting a forum-selection clause or by failing to raise the objection in time.¹¹
If neither applies, test for specific jurisdiction by asking whether the claim arises out of the defendant's voluntary forum contacts and whether a long-arm statute authorizes out-of-state service. Treat general jurisdiction through contacts as probably limited to the individual's home state.¹²

The second question usually decides the exam problem, because service does two separate jobs and only one of them is jurisdictional. Personal service gives notice wherever it is accomplished, but it serves as a basis for jurisdiction only when it is accomplished inside the forum state. Service from a California court on a New York defendant vacationing in Mexico gives perfectly adequate notice, yet it cannot support jurisdiction; to do that, service must be accomplished in California.¹³ A stem that reports the defendant received the summons therefore proves nothing about jurisdiction. Look for the fact about where the defendant was standing.

The standard golfer illustration shows the difference. A professional golfer who lives in State Red endorses a set of clubs, a buyer in State Blue is using the clubs when a clubhead flies off and injures the plaintiff, and the plaintiff sues the golfer in State White, where the golfer is served while briefly there to play a tournament. The golfer's physical presence in White at the moment of service is enough for personal jurisdiction, regardless of whether the long-arm statute would allow out-of-state service and regardless of whether the golfer has minimum contacts with White.¹⁴ Now suppose the process server misses the tournament.

Delivery location is the only difference between the two golfer scenes, and it moves the result from jurisdiction over any claim to no jurisdiction at all. A second illustration reaches the same no by a different route. A Michigan resident driving home from a five-day vacation in Kentucky has an accident in Indiana with a Kentucky resident, who sues in Kentucky. The claim does not relate to the defendant's Kentucky activities, the defendant is not domiciled there, and nothing indicates service in Kentucky or consent. Kentucky cannot exercise jurisdiction, and the plaintiff's own Kentucky residence supplies no basis.¹⁵

Whether tag is needed at all depends on how the claim relates to the forum, as another pair of illustrations shows. A Texas seller assembles a laptop in Texas, personally delivers and installs it at an Arkansas buyer's home, and ten months later the battery malfunctions and burns the buyer. A suit in Arkansas rests on specific jurisdiction, because the claim relates to the seller's voluntary trip into Arkansas. Minimum contacts satisfy due process without any need for tag, although service made outside Arkansas must still comply with a long-arm statute that authorizes it.¹⁶ If the buyer later vacations through Texas, stops at the seller's home, and is accidentally run over in the driveway, a negligence suit in Arkansas has no connection to any Arkansas contact and depends on general jurisdiction. The Arkansas court probably lacks that jurisdiction unless the seller became domiciled in Arkansas before suit or is served at a moment when the seller is temporarily in Arkansas.¹⁷ Of those routes, only in-state service turns on where the seller happens to be on a given day instead of on a settled status. That is why the limits on luring, litigation immunity, and involuntary presence matter whenever a stem places a process server near a traveling defendant.

A full answer finishes by noting the procedural points the facts invite. A defendant served by tag may contest the service through a special appearance, and a court that holds valid tag jurisdiction may still dismiss or transfer a case with no local connection. Both points were covered above.

Tag in Jurisdiction Analysis

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