International Shoe Co. v. Washington

You just rattle it off.

And crucially, you can verbally explain how that rule applied in the International Shoe case, all without looking down at your paper.

Okay, so that's total unassisted mastery.

What if it's yellow?

A defective part was sold to a distributor in State C and ultimately resold in State A, where it caused harm to the plaintiff.

The defendant files a Rule twelve B two motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction.

Immediately, you have to identify the court issue, specific personal jurisdiction, and the requirement of minimum contacts under International Shoe.

But the deep analysis requires navigating the doctrinal split regarding the stream of commerce.

If you were outside, they didn't.

But the Supreme Court abandoned that rigid framework in International Shoe.

International Shoe shifted the paradigm to a standard of minimum contacts.

Right.

A court can exercise jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant if they have certain minimum contacts with the forum, such that the maintenance of the suit does not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.

So by all modern due process metrics, Pennsylvania cannot hear the case, but the Supreme Court, in a highly fractured opinion, upheld the Pennsylvania statute.

Justice Gorsuch, writing for a plurality, relied heavily on a nineteen seventeen case called Pennsylvania Fire.

He argued that consent by registration is a deeply historical, traditional basis for jurisdiction that the International Shoe line of cases never actually overruled.

You know, we have a concept of, of personal jurisdiction.

We have cases on this particular point, like International Shoe, and Helicopteros [laughs], and all these cases that I learned 35 years ago when I went to law school that are still operative.

There's some additional cases that have come up since in the area of personal jurisdiction and long-arm jurisdiction, but it still comes down to a two-part inquiry.

Is there a statute that allows for this jurisdiction? And even if there is, does the basic notion of fairness allow a party to be dragged across the pond to defend themselves in this jurisdiction? The judge hasn't decided it yet.