Client Alerts

Minimum Contacts Inquiry Cannot Be Minimal: U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Broad Reading of the Effects Test for Personal Jurisdiction

March 04, 2014

BY STEPHEN B. KINNAIRD, CHARLES A. PATRIZIA, IGOR V. TIMOFEYEV, SEAN D. UNGER & DANIELLE C. DOREMUS

The Supreme Court continues to curtail plaintiffs’ freedom to select the forum of litigation. On the heels of its decision last month in Daimler AG v. Bauman restricting general personal jurisdiction, the Court’s decision last week in Walden v. Fiore, No. 12-574, clarifies the constitutional limits of specific jurisdiction. In both contexts, the Court confirmed that even in our increasingly mobile world, plaintiffs cannot presume that the court they choose will have jurisdiction over the defendant.