No Middle Ground

No Middle Ground

A defendant can run stores, sell by the thousands, and employ workers in a state and still be beyond that state's courts on a given plaintiff's claim. A claim gets into a forum's courts through one of two doors: it arises out of the defendant's particular contacts with the forum (specific jurisdiction), or the defendant is at home there (general jurisdiction).¹ A defendant whose contacts are substantial, do not make it at home, and have nothing to do with the claim opens neither door.

The home door is narrow. BNSF Railway Co. v. Tyrrell holds that a corporation is not subject to general jurisdiction in a state merely because it does substantial business there, and that absent exceptional circumstances general jurisdiction exists only where the corporation is at home, meaning its place of incorporation or principal place of business.² Daimler adds that a corporation cannot have too many homes, so except in unusual cases the only safe forums for general jurisdiction are the place of incorporation and the principal place of business.³ Both doors are limits that the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause places on a state tribunal's authority to proceed against a defendant.⁴

The Sliding Scale That Does Not Exist

The tempting error treats the two categories as points on a single scale. The weaker the link between claim and contacts, the more regular the contacts must be, and a claim somewhat related to regular contacts could be heard even though the relationship is too thin for specific jurisdiction and the contacts too few for general jurisdiction. A claim loosely connected to heavy forum activity does feel fairer to hear than a claim with no connection at all. That intuition has no home in the doctrine, which asks two separate questions and allows no partial credit.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California shows the all-or-nothing structure at work. Nonresident plaintiffs sued a drug company in a California state court alongside California residents. The nonresidents had bought the drug in their home states and did not allege that they were injured or treated in California. The company's California sales were substantial, so the case tested whether heavy forum contacts could substitute for a link between each claim and the forum. They could not. A court must have personal jurisdiction over each claim by each plaintiff, and it cannot typically assert jurisdiction over the whole case because it has jurisdiction over one claim.⁵ (A narrow and controversial exception exists for a category of federal claims.) The specific-jurisdiction reading covers the decision in detail; it matters here for the structure it confirms.

One Suit, Two Answers

The two plaintiffs were hurt by the same product and the same course of conduct, yet they received different answers, because each claim is tested separately. A plaintiff therefore has two routes and only two: show that the claim arises out of the defendant's forum contacts, or show that the forum is the defendant's home.

The defendant who escapes suit in the loosely connected forum can still be sued somewhere on every claim. A pharmaceutical company incorporated in Delaware with its principal place of business in New York is at home in both states, so one suit on all the plaintiffs' claims may be brought in either.⁷

Why the Categories Do Not Blend

The all-or-nothing structure follows from what each category rests on. General jurisdiction is the forum's power to decide a defendant's rights and obligations on any claim whatsoever, so it rests on the extent of the defendant's contacts and needs no relationship between the forum and the events behind the claim. Specific jurisdiction asks about that relationship and can rest on particular contacts.⁸ A sliding scale would let a shortfall on one showing be made up from the other, so that a court could find a little of each and call the sum enough. But each shortfall removes part of the justification for the court's power, and two partial justifications do not add up to a whole one. A blended standard would also be unpredictable, because no one could say in advance how regular the contacts must be for a claim of a given degree of relatedness. Daimler points the same way: whatever the standards for general jurisdiction are, they cannot produce too many forums in which it exists.⁹

For the same reason, a court should not use analysis from specific-jurisdiction cases to support general jurisdiction.¹⁰ A court that treats the continuous flow of a manufacturer's products into the forum as a basis for jurisdiction over claims unrelated to that flow makes exactly that mistake. Daimler recalls that Goodyear explained why: placing a product into the stream of commerce may bolster an affiliation germane to specific jurisdiction, but it does not warrant a finding that the forum has general jurisdiction over the defendant.¹¹ Borrowing in the other direction fails too, since extensive forum operations do nothing to make a particular claim arise out of them. The Daimler plaintiffs show the consequence. Their allegations rested on events that took place entirely outside the United States, they were not California residents, and they claimed no connection between the events in Argentina and California. Specific jurisdiction was out of reach, so the case turned on general jurisdiction alone.¹²

The Cost, and the Exam Move

The structure costs some plaintiffs convenience. Imagine a Nevada citizen on vacation in New York who is hit by a Home Depot truck: a plaintiff injured away from home must litigate away from home.¹³ The price buys predictability. The place of incorporation and the principal place of business each ordinarily indicates only one place, and each is easily ascertainable, so a defendant knows in advance where it can be sued on any claim, and a plaintiff always has at least one clear and certain forum.¹⁴

An exam stem that recites a defendant's stores, sales, or employees in the forum and then describes a plaintiff injured elsewhere invites a middle-ground answer: “the contacts are substantial and the claim is related enough.” Resist it. Ask two questions, each with a yes-or-no answer. Does this claim arise out of the defendant's forum contacts? Is the forum the defendant's place of incorporation or principal place of business, or an exceptional case of the kind taught earlier? If both answers are no, the court lacks personal jurisdiction over that claim, however large the contacts look. Then name where the plaintiff can sue: the defendant's home, or the place where the claim arose.