Defining Residence

Defining Residence

Section 1391(b)(1) permits suit in a district where any defendant “resides,” and subsection (c) says what that word means. Its definitions apply “for all venue purposes,” and the statute gives a separate one for each kind of defendant.¹ The district a definition assigns can differ from the place a layperson would call home, and a student who relies on intuition will sometimes name the wrong district and lose the venue issue at its first step.

The four definitions track the connection that makes a district a fair place for that defendant to defend. A natural person, including a lawfully admitted permanent resident alien, resides in the one district where the person is domiciled.² An entity with the capacity to sue and be sued in its common name, whether or not incorporated, resides as a defendant in every district in which it is subject to personal jurisdiction in the civil action in question, so one entity can reside in many districts at once.³ A corporation sued in a state with several districts meets a narrower test, which asks district by district whether its contacts there would support personal jurisdiction if the district were a state of its own.⁴ A defendant not resident in the United States has no home district at all, so it may be sued in any district, and its joinder is disregarded in deciding where the action may be brought against the other defendants.⁵ The sections below take the rules in that order, beginning with the individual because domicile is the simplest of them.

Two features run through all four rules. The definitions govern every use of “resides” in the venue statute.⁶ Subsection (c)(2) adds that an entity plaintiff resides only in the district of its principal place of business.⁷ Residence is also only the first condition of (b)(1). Once each defendant’s district is fixed, the subsection still requires that all defendants reside in the state where the chosen district lies, and that condition matters most when the plaintiff sues several defendants.⁸

Individual Defendants

Section 1391(c)(1) deems a natural person, including an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States, to reside “in the judicial district in which that person is domiciled.”⁹ Domicile is the place where a person lives with the intent to remain, and the statute assigns each person to the single district that contains it.¹⁰ Lawful permanent residents stand on the same footing as citizens: for either, ask where the person has made a permanent home. A defendant with no residence in the United States falls under a separate rule, the last of the four definitions below.

Domicile is singular, so each individual has exactly one residence district, even in a state that contains several. Greeley lives in Manhattan, and she resides for venue purposes only in the Southern District of New York, although New York has three other federal districts.¹¹ Residence venue against her lies in that district and in no other New York district, and a plaintiff who wants a different one must find another basis for it. The rule gives each defendant one predictable home forum and keeps a plaintiff from choosing among districts where the defendant has only a passing connection.

That single-district rule is recent. Before 2011, courts disagreed about where an individual with homes in more than one place resided, and Congress ended the disagreement that year by amending subsection (c)(1) to its present text.¹² An older opinion that counts several homes as several residences no longer states the law.

Courts apply domicile for venue much as they apply it in diversity jurisdiction, looking to where the person lives with the intent to remain.¹³ Venue adds one twist. Diversity asks which state holds the person’s domicile; venue asks which judicial district does.¹⁴

The Tampa condominium shows the usual error: treating a second home, a workplace, or a place the defendant visits as a residence. Subsection (c)(1) looks only to domicile, and none of those facts changes the answer.

Domicile can also place a defendant outside every district of the forum state, and then the same-state condition cannot be met. Thompson v. Greyhound Lines, Inc. shows what follows when a plaintiff files anyway. Without the defendant who lived elsewhere, venue under the residence alternative would have been proper, because the remaining defendants resided in the forum state, yet the court knew of no rule that required it to dismiss that defendant on its own initiative to save venue when the plaintiff had filed no motion to do so.¹⁵ A plaintiff who wants that result must ask for it.

Entity Defendants

Section 1391(c)(2) governs defendants that are entities. It reaches any “entity with the capacity to sue and be sued in its common name under applicable law, whether or not incorporated,” and it deems such an entity, as a defendant, to reside “in any judicial district in which such defendant is subject to the court’s personal jurisdiction with respect to the civil action in question.”¹⁷ Corporations fall within the rule, and so do partnerships, unions, and other associations that the governing law allows to be sued by name. The 2011 amendment extended the personal-jurisdiction test to business entities generally, where the earlier text had spoken only of corporate defendants.¹⁸

The statute departs from the individual rule because an entity has no domicile. Domicile in the common-law sense is a place of residence where one intends to remain indefinitely, and a corporation cannot form an intent as a person does.¹⁹ The definition the statute adopts is functional: it asks whether this entity could properly be required to defend this lawsuit in this district. Because the test borrows personal jurisdiction, venue can never place an entity in a district where the suit could not already proceed against it, and every district that qualifies is one where the entity’s home or its conduct underlying the claim already justifies suit.

The Acme example shows how many districts the rule can produce at once. Quan sues Acme Corporation over an accident in Maryland. Acme is incorporated in South Dakota and has its principal place of business in South Carolina, and each of the three states has a single federal district. Under Daimler AG v. Bauman and Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, general jurisdiction over a corporation usually lies only where it is “at home,” in the state of incorporation and the state of its principal place of business, so Acme resides in South Dakota and South Carolina.²⁰ Acme resides in Maryland for a different reason: the claim arose from events there, and Acme’s minimum contacts support specific jurisdiction for this suit.²¹ All three districts therefore satisfy § 1391(b)(1), and Quan may choose among them although the accident happened in only one. That outcome is not anomalous, because venue provisions often lay venue where the defendant has important connections, such as a residence or a place of business, whatever the claim’s origin.²²

The Maryland leg of the example shows that residence through specific jurisdiction depends on what the entity did in the district, and one act can be enough. If an employee commits a single act in the district that gives rise to the claim, the act supports minimum-contacts jurisdiction over the entity for that claim, and the entity resides there for venue purposes.²³ Venue thus demands far less corporate activity than two standards that sound similar. Diversity citizenship looks to a corporation’s state of incorporation and principal place of business, and general jurisdiction looks to where the corporation is “at home”; each leaves the corporation with one or two locations. The venue definition also reaches every district in which the claim itself creates jurisdiction.²⁴

The phrase “the civil action in question” ties residence to the claim before the court, and a large local presence is the usual way students overshoot that limit.²⁵ Mead sues Dixie Corporation over a defamatory statement that a Dixie officer made in Philadelphia, and files in the Middle District of Tennessee, where Dixie operates a large factory. Nothing in the claim arose in Tennessee, and we may assume that the factory does not make Dixie “at home” there. Dixie is therefore not subject to personal jurisdiction in Tennessee on this claim and does not reside in that district. Dixie does reside in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, where its officer made the statement and where the claim therefore supports specific jurisdiction.²⁶ Jurisdiction over Dixie on some unrelated claim would not change the Tennessee result, because the question is asked about the suit actually filed.²⁷

Courts decide residence for a corporate defendant by deciding personal jurisdiction. In Zippo Manufacturing Co. v. Zippo Dot Com, Inc., Dot Com was the only defendant and a corporation, so the residence alternative turned on whether it was subject to personal jurisdiction in the district. Dot Com argued that the Third Circuit’s Cottman decision confined trademark plaintiffs to the events alternative. The court answered that the panel’s use of subsection (b)(2) in one case does not make it the rule for every trademark case, and Dot Com conceded at argument that its reading would render (b)(1) inapplicable to trademark cases.²⁸ Laumann Mfg. Corp. v. Castings U.S.A., Inc. likewise treated a corporate defendant as a resident of any district in which it was subject to personal jurisdiction when the action began, and it relied on the official commentary that anything that would make the corporation amenable to jurisdiction in the district counts.²⁹ Elbeco Inc. v. Estrella de Plato Corp. found that a substantial part of the events occurred in the district and that all the defendants had contacts sufficient for personal jurisdiction there, and it denied the motion to dismiss for lack of venue.³⁰ Opinions decided under the pre-2011 text quote a statute in which the residence alternative sat in subsection (a) for diversity cases and in subsection (b) for other cases, so read them against the current (b)(1) and (c)(2).³¹

An entity’s residence settles venue only as to the entity. One decision paired a corporate defendant, Roche, with an individual defendant, Ary. The court first noted that the fallback in subsection (b)(3) was unavailable, because it applies only when no district is otherwise proper, and it then turned to the events alternative. A substantial part of the events might have occurred in Michigan as to Roche, but no allegation placed Ary in the state, so on the plaintiff’s allegations New Jersey, where Ary had contact with the plaintiff and Roche had its principal place of business, was the only proper venue for the non-federal claims against both defendants.³² A corporation’s connection to a district does not extend to a co-defendant who lacks one.

The second half of § 1391(c)(2) governs an entity that sues: it resides only in the district where it maintains its principal place of business.³³ The contrast with the defendant rule makes sense. A jurisdiction-based test fits a party compelled to appear, and a plaintiff has chosen its forum, so letting an entity plaintiff claim residence wherever it does business would make nearly every large company a resident nearly everywhere. Because (b)(1) looks only to defendants, this half matters only where another provision turns on the plaintiff’s residence.

Keep the venue definition apart from the diversity rule for the same entities. A partnership or union sued in federal court resides for venue purposes wherever it is subject to personal jurisdiction on the claim, while its citizenship for diversity follows a different rule that looks to its members.³⁴ The two bodies of law serve different purposes, so a diversity rule for an entity’s citizenship does not belong in a venue analysis.

Corporations in Multi-District States

Section 1391(d) adjusts the entity rule for a corporation sued in a state with more than one federal district. If the corporation “is subject to personal jurisdiction at the time an action is commenced” in the state, it resides in “any district in that State within which its contacts would be sufficient to subject it to personal jurisdiction if that district were a separate State.”³⁶ A second clause supplies a fallback: if no district passes that test, the corporation resides in “the district within which it has the most significant contacts.”³⁷ In a single-district state the subsection adds nothing, because the district and the state coincide and subsection (c)(2) does all the work.³⁸ The question is what subsection (d) takes away from the broader entity rule, and why.

Personal jurisdiction is a statewide concept: when a state’s courts may hear a claim against a corporation, their power reaches every corner of the state. Read alone, subsection (c)(2) would therefore make a corporation subject to jurisdiction anywhere in a four-district state a resident of all four districts, including districts where it has never done anything. Venue allocates cases district by district, so subsection (d) asks the jurisdiction question again for each district, treating it as a state of its own. A district qualifies only when the corporation’s contacts inside it, taken alone, would justify jurisdiction over the claim. The effect is to authorize venue in districts where the corporation has significant contacts and to withhold it in the state’s other districts where it has none.³⁹

The test is easiest to see on a corporation whose presence in a state sits in one place. Suppose Acme’s headquarters are in Los Angeles, in the Central District of California, and Acme has no contacts in California’s other three districts. Treat the Central District as a separate state: Acme’s principal place of business there would, it appears, support general jurisdiction over any claim, so Acme resides in that district and venue lies there under (b)(1).⁴⁰ Now treat the Northern District the same way. Acme has no contacts there and would not be subject to jurisdiction on the plaintiff’s claim, so Acme does not reside there, and the district is an improper venue even though California’s courts could hear the claim.⁴¹ Change the facts so that the claim arises from an accident at an Acme plant in the Northern District, and the answer changes with them: Acme’s own conduct there now supports specific jurisdiction for this claim, and Acme resides in that district as well.

The narrowing can remove a district even when the plaintiff has an attractive case for it. Barnum, a Maine citizen, sues a circus in the Northern District of New York over an injury caused by a circus employee’s negligence in Maine. The circus is incorporated in Delaware and has its headquarters in Manhattan, in the Southern District of New York. The events alternative fails because nothing relevant happened in New York. The residence alternative fails too: the Manhattan headquarters make the circus subject to jurisdiction in New York generally, but with the Northern District treated as a state the circus has no contact there. Nor does the fallback in § 1391(b)(3) rescue the filing, because it applies only when no other district is proper, and the District of Maine, where the events occurred, is.⁴²

Courts read subsections (c) and (d) together in just this way: a corporate defendant resides, for venue purposes, in any district where it would be subject to personal jurisdiction if that district were viewed as its own state. A corporation incorporated in Delaware with its principal place of business in the Southern District of California, for example, was subject to general jurisdiction in the District of Delaware and the Southern District of California, the districts of incorporation and headquarters, respectively.⁴³

The second clause of subsection (d) covers a corporation that is subject to jurisdiction in the state although no single district’s contacts would carry jurisdiction on their own. Without the clause, such a corporation would have no district of residence in the state, and a plaintiff who needed the residence alternative would find it closed even though the state’s courts could hear the case. The clause closes the gap by assigning residence to the one district in which the corporation has its most significant contacts.⁴⁴ It operates only after the first test fails, and only that single district qualifies, so the plaintiff cannot choose among the state’s districts.

The statute fixes a corporation’s jurisdictional status “at the time an action is commenced,” so the filing date is the date that counts.⁴⁵ Take a circus whose claim arose in Arizona in 2013, when it had no California contacts, and which had built a California business and located its principal place of business there by the time of suit. California courts can then exercise general jurisdiction over the circus, and the California district containing its headquarters is a proper residence venue under (b)(1) and (d).⁴⁶

Large national corporations often make subsection (d) a weak limit, because their stores, plants, and offices give them contacts in nearly every district of a state. In In re Volkswagen of America, Inc., the court observed that a corporation like Volkswagen often has contacts sufficient to satisfy the district-by-district test for most, if not all, federal venues in a multi-district state such as Texas. The general venue statute therefore nearly eliminates venue restrictions in suits against corporations, and disputes over a district’s convenience arrive instead as transfer motions under § 1404(a).⁴⁷ The opinion quotes the pre-2011 numbering, in which the multi-district rule sat in subsection (c); the same rule now sits in subsection (d).

Passing this test settles only the first condition of residence venue. When the case has more than one defendant, the requirement that every defendant reside in the same state as the chosen district still has to be met.

Nonresident Defendants

The last of the four definitions covers a defendant with no home in the United States. Subsection (c)(3) provides that “a defendant not resident in the United States may be sued in any judicial district, and the joinder of such a defendant shall be disregarded in determining where the action may be brought with respect to other defendants.”⁴⁹ The two clauses do separate jobs: the first fixes where the foreign defendant itself may be sued, and the second protects the other defendants. The test is residence in this country, not citizenship. A foreign national who is domiciled in a district of the United States resides there under § 1391(c)(1) and is sued under the ordinary rules, so subsection (c)(3) reaches only a defendant with no residence here.⁵⁰

The first clause fills a gap that the other alternatives leave. Residence venue looks for a district in which a defendant resides, and a defendant whose home is abroad resides in no district, so that alternative cannot be satisfied on the foreign defendant’s account.⁵¹ The events alternative may fail as well, since the conduct may have occurred overseas or in no district of the United States.⁵² The fallback applies only when no district is otherwise proper, and it limits the plaintiff to districts in which a defendant is subject to personal jurisdiction.⁵³ Subsection (c)(3) closes the gap at its source by making every district an acceptable venue for the foreign defendant. A defendant with no home district here has no district that is more naturally its home than another, and the protection it needs comes from personal jurisdiction, which asks whether the defendant has enough contacts with the forum state to be sued there. Subsection (c)(3) leaves that question untouched.

The second clause matters once a domestic defendant joins the case. Without it, a plaintiff could pair a foreign defendant, who may be sued anywhere, with an American one and use the first to carry the second into a district that has no connection to the American defendant. Disregarding the foreign defendant’s joinder forces the court to ask where the action could be brought against the domestic defendants as if they were the only defendants.⁵⁴ The clause also solves a quieter problem under the residence alternative, which requires that all defendants reside in the same state. A defendant who lives abroad resides in no state, so counting that defendant would defeat the condition for everyone.⁵⁵

An exam version of the Wyoming accident adds a domestic co-defendant and asks where the plaintiff may sue both.

The two scenes differ only by the presence of the Montana domiciliary. Against Brandt alone, the plaintiff’s choice of district is open. Once Larsen is a defendant, the choice narrows to what is proper for Larsen, and Brandt’s presence neither widens it nor narrows it. Personal jurisdiction over each defendant remains a separate requirement in either scene.