personal jurisdiction

Stephen E. Sachs | 4.11.2024 9:05 AM

Personal jurisdiction aficionados have been buzzing about the Court's decision last summer in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co. and what it might mean for jurisdiction over interstate corporations. In particular, Justice Alito's concurrence reintroduced some dormant-commerce questions that used to play a major role but have largely been forgotten since International Shoe.

I've got a new paper, forthcoming in The Supreme Court Review, which takes on the question. As it turns out, modern dormant-commerce doctrine puts some limits on state consent-by-registration statutes—but states can still do some important things that they couldn't do through minimum contacts alone. And as an original matter, assuming a "dormant" commerce clause exists, it likely doesn't say much about corporate recognition or internal affairs—or place many limits on a state's personal jurisdiction.

From the abstract:

Since 1945, the Court has sought for substantive rules of personal jurisdiction in the depths of Fourteenth Amendment due process. Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co. returns "dormant commerce" doctrine to the field—a place it occupied for several decades in the........

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