A defendant can be required to appear in a state they have never visited, and can also defeat a case filed in the wrong one. This subject covers what a long-arm statute reaches, the contacts a court looks for, how online selling and shipping create exposure, what appointing a registered agent concedes, the effect of a forum selection clause, and what to do about a default judgment entered elsewhere.
General jurisdiction permits a court to hear any claim against a defendant, however unconnected to the state, and requires affiliations so continuous and systematic as to render the defendant essentially at home there. For an individual that means domicile; for a corporation it means the place of incorporation and the principal place of business, with exceptional cases beyond those.
Full faith and credit requires each state to give a sister-state judgment the effect it has where rendered, which is enforced through a registration procedure adopted in most states rather than by fresh litigation. A judgment debtor cannot reopen the merits, cannot argue that the rendering state applied the wrong law and cannot invoke public policy.
A business qualifying to do business in another state must generally appoint a registered agent to receive service of process there. That appointment reliably means papers can be served, which removes one obstacle a plaintiff would otherwise face. Whether registration also amounts to consent to general jurisdiction — the power to hear any claim, however unconnected — is a question of the registering state's own law, and states differ sharply.
Unlike subject matter jurisdiction, personal jurisdiction is a personal right that can be waived. It is waived by omitting the objection from the first responsive motion or pleading, by filing a motion that seeks other relief without including it, and in some circumstances by taking substantive steps in the case before raising it.
Constitutional due process permits a state to exercise jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant where the defendant has purposefully availed itself of the privilege of conducting activities in the state, where the claim arises out of or relates to those activities, and where the exercise of jurisdiction is otherwise reasonable. The first element excludes random, fortuitous or attenuated contacts and contacts created by someone else's unilateral act.
Service on a defendant outside the forum state is generally permitted by the methods the forum's rules allow, by the methods allowed where service is made, or by any method a court orders. Personal delivery remains the most secure. Service on a registered agent is reliable where one exists. Substituted service at a residence, service by mail with acknowledgment, and service on a state official as a substitute agent are each available under conditions that vary.
Forum selection clauses are presumptively enforceable and are set aside only on a strong showing — fraud in the inclusion of the clause itself, a forum so inconvenient as to deprive a party of a day in court, or a conflict with a strong public policy. The recurring problems are not enforceability but drafting: whether the clause is exclusive or permissive, whether its scope reaches tort and statutory claims, and whether the named court can actually hear the dispute.
Where a court has jurisdiction but another forum would be substantially more appropriate, the case may be transferred or dismissed so it can be brought elsewhere. Within the federal system the mechanism is a venue transfer to another district; between the courts of different states it is a dismissal conditioned on the defendant accepting jurisdiction and waiving limitation defenses in the alternative forum.
A defendant whose goods reach a state through a distribution chain rather than by direct sale presents the stream of commerce problem, on which the Supreme Court has divided repeatedly without producing a single controlling formulation. One approach treats awareness that goods will reach a state as sufficient; another requires conduct purposefully directed at that market, such as designing for it, advertising there, establishing channels for advice, or appointing a distributor.
Personal jurisdiction over a defendant outside the state requires two things: a state statute authorizing it, and consistency with constitutional due process. Some states enumerate specific acts — transacting business, committing a tort, owning property, contracting to insure a risk — while others simply extend jurisdiction to the constitutional limit, collapsing the two questions into one.
The fact that a website can be viewed in a state has consistently been held insufficient to create personal jurisdiction there. Courts distinguish passive sites that merely post information from interactive ones through which business is conducted, and within the interactive category they look at whether the seller targeted the state, how many transactions were completed with residents, and whether the seller arranged delivery there.
