PERSONAL JURISDICTION (P/J) What connections b/w parties and a state give that state’s courts legitimate authority over the parties?
POWER OVER PERSON OR PROPERTY – Every state possesses exclusive jurisd. over persons or property within their borders. No state can exercise direct jurisd. over persons or property without their borders. A person may submit voluntarily to the jurisd. of a state or must be brought within the court’s jurisd. by service of process within the state. Pennoyer v. Neff. P Neff alleged that D Pennoyer’s deed from a sheriff’s sale was invalid b/c the court ordering the sale had never obtained P/J over him. USSC held the service of process via publication was inadequate and violative of due process. Judgment obtained was invalid and property couldn’t be sold.
Reasoning: ~ State borders still mean something. To allow one state to exert authority over a citizen of another state would be an encroachment of that state’s sovereignty.
n Notice of an action by publication that involves personal rights or obligations would open the doors to fraud and oppression to non-residents.
n FF&C cl. Doesn’t mean that a judgment must be taken at face value. FF&C extended only where party was correctly subjected to P/J of the rendering court.
n The court in Pennoyer does not hold that a state lacks the ability to declare the rights of one of its citizens as against a non-citizen. Ex. Granting of divorces
Objecting to P/J – A. Collateral attack – 1. If the D believes that the P’s chosen forum lacks P/J over him, he may ignore the proceeding entirely and see a default judgment entered against him. Then he may assert in the enforcing court that the judgment was invalid due to a lack of P/J over him and should be thrown out. This is risky b/c if the enforcing ct. rules against him on the jurisdictional question, he will miss completely his chance to litigate on the merits, b/c he defaulted in rendering court. Some jurisdictions provide for sua sponte examination of P/J over the D, even where D fails to appear at all. 2. A D may not challenge P/J in the enforcement action if they have already done so in the original action. B. Direct Attacks 1. Special appearance – Many states allow a D to appear only for the purposes of objecting to jurisdiction. If D makes any efforts to argue the merits of the case or litigate the claim in any way, she will be deemed to have consented to P/J w/in the state. Stat
e in Mass. Hess citizen of PA. MA had a law that created the legal fiction that out of state users of MA’s roadways had apptd. an agent for the service of process in the event of accident. Hess challenged it and lost on the grounds that a “State may make and enforce regulations reasonably calculated to promote care on the part of all, residents and nonresidents alike, who use its highways.” Non-residents aren’t discriminated against by this holding, but merely held to the same standard as resident citizens. USSC qualified the holding: implied consent was limited to proceedings that grew out of the accident and nothing else, non-resident must receive notice and copy of process, and allowances in the form of continuances should be made to accommodate the out of stater.
MINIMUM CONTACTS – Whereas corporations are legal fictions having no corpus, the Pennoyer-type power-grid hit a dead end. Something else was needed. International Shoe Co. v. Washington State. Shoe Co. was
