Chimeric Contacts and Consent: The Ill-Reasoned Expansion of Corporate Jurisdictional Exposure

Two recent Supreme Court decisions have imposed aspects of general jurisdiction in a way that exposes corporations and possibly other legal actors to litigation in spuriously connected forums. One case—Ford Motor Company v. Montana—reached a fair result but with strained reasoning that will support unfair results. The second case—Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railroad Company—was wrong on the facts and the law, imposing general jurisdiction based on a vaguely worded corporate registration statute validated by a more than century-old precedent based on Pennoyer v. Neff’s limited territorial model. Both decisions were the result of conceptual corners the Supreme Court has created or passively allowed.

This Article examines the larger history of corporate “presence” and amenability, then explains the two cases in the milieu of the larger jurisdictional paradigm, highlighting the warp they create for specific and general jurisdiction. The Conclusion summarizes various defense arguments inherent in the Court’s reasoning, although the availability of these defenses does not validate these unfortunate rulings.