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Personal Jurisdiction: How to Determine Where a Person Can Be Sued
Cour ts in the United States must have two kinds of jurisdiction to hear a case, personal jurisdiction and subject matter
jurisdiction. Subject matter jurisdiction refers to whether a court can hear a case on a particular subject and is usually
pretty clear. Personal jurisdiction, on the other hand, refers to whether a court has power over the person being sued and
can be difficult to determine. The basic concept behind determining personal jurisdiction is evaluating whether courts in
that state have a vested interest in you and a right to make binding decisions over you.
Personal Jurisdiction -- The Four Basic Types
Personal jurisdiction has four major categories in case law, and while three of them are fairly easy to understand, the
four th,"minimum contacts," can be difficult to determine:
•
Presence: Being served with a copy of the summons and complaint while physically present in the forum state in
sufficient to give a cour t in that state jurisdiction over the person who was served. That means that even if you were
only just passing through the state for a few minutes, if you are properly served, you can be sued in that state.
•
Domicile/Place of Business: Domicile or residence in a state is enough to give cour ts in that state jurisdiction over
you. This also applies to wherever you establish your place of business. In practice, this means that even if the incident took place in another state or even in another country, you can always be sued in the state in which you have
established residence or maintain your place of business.
•
Consent: Not surprisingly, you can simply consent to a court having personal jurisdiction over you. Consent comes
in two basic forms, express and implied. Express consent can be given by voluntarily appearing before the court and
submitting yourself to its jurisdiction. This means that even if a cour t otherwise didn’t have power over you, by showing up, you can grant the court that power. Consent also can be implied, and one of the most common forms of
implied consent is by driving on the roads of that state. Cour ts consider you to have given implied consent to the
laws regulating roads, and thus if you have a car accident on the road in that state, a cour t has personal jurisdiction
over you.
•
Minimum Contacts: A cour t can also have personal jurisdiction over you if you maintain certain "minimum contacts"
with the state where a court resides.Minimum contacts is somewhat of a catchall where a court decides that you’ve
had enough interaction with a state to justify having personal jurisdiction over you. Below is the basic test courts use
to determine whether you’ve established minimum contacts with a state.
Personal Jurisdiction -- Minimum Contacts With a State
The Supreme Court set for th a basic test to determine whether a particular person has established minimum contacts with
that state:
•
Continuous, Systematic Contacts and Related Lawsuits: Jurisdiction is permissible when the defendant’s activity
in the forum is continuous and systematic and the cause of action is related to that activity.
•
Continuous, Systematic Contacts and Unrelated Lawsuits: A cour t may still assert personal jurisdiction over a
defendant whose continuous activities in the forum are sufficiently substantial and of such a nature as to make the
state’s asser tion of jurisdiction reasonable, even if the cause of action is unrelated to those activities. A practical
example of this would be a business that does a lot of business in a state, but is sued for something unrelated to that
business.
•
Sporadic or Casual Activity and Unrelated Lawsuits: If a defendant’s activity is only sporadic or casual, then a
cour t does not have personal jurisdiction over a cause of action that is unrelated to that sporadic activity.
•
Sporadic or Casual Activity and Related Lawsuits: Even a defendant whose activity in the state is sporadic, or
consists only of a single act, may be subject to the personal jurisdiction of a court in that state when the lawsuit
relates to that activity or act.
Jurisdiction over Property -- In Rem Jurisdiction
A final form or jurisdiction is called in rem jurisdiction, which gives a court jurisdiction over things (usually property) as
opposed to people. This relates to personal jurisdiction because even if a cour t couldn’t otherwise have personal jurisdiction over you, it may have jurisdiction over a piece of property you own. This means that if you own property in another
state, even though you could not otherwise be sued there, the court does have jurisdiction over your property which in
effect gives it power over you.
However, in rem jurisdiction is considerably more limited than personal jurisdiction, because the lawsuit generally has to
concern the property itself and damages are often limited to the fair market value of the property. This means that in practice, buying a house in another state would grant a court jurisdiction to hear a dispute regarding that house, but not necessarily regarding other disputes that involve you.
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