Individuals and Domicile

Individuals and Domicile

The corporate at-home test is modeled on the rule for individuals, so the individual rule comes first. Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown stated both in one sentence: “For an individual, the paradigm forum for the exercise of general jurisdiction is the individual's domicile; for a corporation, it is an equivalent place, one in which the corporation is fairly regarded as at home.”¹ Daimler AG v. Bauman quoted that sentence again before concluding that Daimler's slim contacts with California did not make it at home there.²

Domicile is the state where a person lives with the intent to remain indefinitely.³ The Court recognized it as an alternative basis for jurisdiction over an individual, even when the suit arises from conduct that occurred elsewhere. In Milliken v. Meyer, it held that “[d]omicile in the state is alone sufficient to bring an absent defendant within the reach of the state's jurisdiction for purposes of a personal judgment.”⁴

Two ideas explain why domicile can support jurisdiction over a claim with no tie to the forum. The first is reciprocity. A domiciliary elects the state's lawmakers and enjoys the usual benefits of state citizenship, so it is not unreasonable to ask that person to accept the matching burden of defending suits in the state's courts.⁵ The second is foreseeability. Domicile implies continuing and permanent ties to the state, so the defendant could always expect to be sued there.⁶ The rule has an edge case: a defendant in the middle of changing domiciles may find the traditional rule unfair. In the vast majority of cases, though, domicile remains a sufficient contact.⁷ Both justifications rest on the defendant's standing relationship with the state. Neither depends on where the events in suit occurred, which is why general jurisdiction can ignore the claim entirely.

The modern cases suggest, without explicitly holding, that due process permits general jurisdiction over an individual, absent consent, only in the person's “home state.”⁸ The inquiry is whether the defendant was domiciled in the forum state at the time of service.⁹ A defendant who happens to be away from home when sued is still answerable there, and the plaintiff can always find one identifiable forum for any claim. A corporation, by contrast, may be at home in more than one place: its principal place of business, its place of incorporation, and perhaps a few other forums in exceptional circumstances.¹⁰

A single set of facts shows how the two kinds of jurisdiction separate. B is domiciled in Hawaii. If A sues B over an accident in Hawaii, a Hawaii court has general jurisdiction because B is domiciled there, and specific jurisdiction because the accident occurred there. An Ohio court has neither, since B is not domiciled in Ohio and the accident did not happen there.¹¹ Move the accident to Ohio and the pattern flips. An Ohio court can claim specific jurisdiction because the accident occurred there, but not general jurisdiction. A Hawaii court keeps general jurisdiction because B is still domiciled there, though it lacks specific jurisdiction because the accident did not occur in Hawaii.¹²

A visit that falls short of domicile shows where the rule stops. A Michigan domiciliary spends five days vacationing in Kentucky and, on the way home, collides in Indiana with a Kentucky resident, who sues in a Kentucky court. Kentucky cannot constitutionally exercise jurisdiction over this claim, because the claim does not relate to the defendant's Kentucky activities and the defendant is not domiciled in Kentucky.¹³ The five-day stay is a real contact, but it bears only on specific jurisdiction, and a vacation does not make a person at home in the state visited. The plaintiff's Kentucky residence does not close the gap, because general jurisdiction measures the defendant's ties to the forum. Had the collision occurred in Kentucky, the claim would relate to the defendant's Kentucky activities, and the analysis would turn to specific jurisdiction.

Three related points need only brief notice here. First, consent and personal service on the defendant while physically in the state are separate bases for jurisdiction over an individual. An individual who is not domiciled in the forum, and neither consents nor is served there, probably falls outside its general jurisdiction.¹⁴ Second, the Supreme Court has never definitively decided whether residence without domicile is enough.¹⁵ Third, domicile also fixes an individual's state citizenship for diversity jurisdiction, but the two inquiries ask different questions. Personal jurisdiction asks whether the defendant is domiciled in the state where suit is brought; diversity compares the parties' domiciles to confirm that they differ.¹⁶ With the individual's domicile as the template, the next question is where a corporation can be said to have a home.