Amendment 14 — Overview Of Personal Jurisdiction And Due Process

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Fourteenth Amendment , Section 1:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

“Personal jurisdiction” or in personam jurisdiction refers to a court’s power over a person (or entity) who is a party to, or involved in, a case or controversy before the court, including its power to render judgments affecting that person’s rights.[1](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/overview-of-personal-jurisdiction-and-due-process#fn1amd14 " Personal Jurisdiction, Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014). ") Prior to the states’ ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Supreme Court’s 1877 decision in Pennoyer v. Neff, a nonresident who received an adverse judgment from one state court would often wait until the winning party sought to obtain enforcement of the judgment[2](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/overview-of-personal-jurisdiction-and-due-process#fn2amd14 " In this context, “enforcement” of a judgment referred to a court’s action “to compel a person to comply with the terms of a judgment” of another state’s courts after determining that the foreign state’s judgment should be recognized as a judgment of the domestic court. Enforcement, Black’s Law Dictionary, supra note 1. ") in the nonresident’s state before challenging the issuing court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over the nonresident.[3](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/overview-of-personal-jurisdiction-and-due-process#fn3amd14 " Stephen E. Sachs, Pennoyer Was Right, 95 Tex. L. Rev. 1249, 1270 (2017) ( “States that wanted to exercise broad jurisdiction would do so, and would execute judgments within their borders on as much of the defendant’s property as they could find. These state judgments, unlike foreign ones, could claim the benefit of the Full Faith and Credit Clause and the 1790 Act. But these provisions were read to leave the law of personal jurisdiction alone. So when American courts were presented with the judgment of another tribunal, whether from Michigan or Mexico, they used the same approach to determining personal jurisdiction. The judgment was the product of a separate sovereign, which was expected to comply with international rules.” ). ") State (and, in some cases, federal)[4](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/overview-of-personal-jurisdiction-and-due-process#fn4amd14 " Id. at 1279 (noting that “federal courts did hear actions involving the recognition of other courts’ judgments, giving them opportunities to comment on the general rules” in diversity cases or cases raising questions under federal statutes regulating judicial procedure). See, e.g., Flower v. Parker, 9 F. Cas. 323, 324 (C.C.D. Mass. 1823) ( No. 4891) (Story, C.J.) (evaluating a Massachusetts state court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over a Louisiana defendant in a Massachusetts federal court case seeking the enforcement of the state court’s judgment). A “diversity case” is one in which a federal court exercises “authority over a case involving parties who are citizens of different states and an amount in controversy greater than a statutory minimum.” Diversity Jurisdiction, Black’s Law Dictionary, supra note 1. ") courts considering whether such judgments were enforceable would typically resolve such jurisdictional challenges on the basis of general, customary law principles[5](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/overview-of-personal-jurisdiction-and-due-process#fn5amd14 " “Customary law” refers to law “consisting of customs that are accepted as legal requirements or obligatory rules of conduct; practices and beliefs that are so vital and intrinsic a part of a social and economic system that they are treated as if they were laws.” Customary Law, Black’s Law Dictionary, supra note 1. ") that had been shaped by the rules for recognition of foreign judgments under international law.[6](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/overview-of-personal-jurisdiction-and-due-process#fn6amd14 " Sachs, supra note 3, at 1270 ( “The Constitution’s role here was largely indirect—letting defendants remove their cases into federal court or challenge enforcement through diversity suits.” ). See also Hall v. Williams, 23 Mass. (6 Pick.) 232, 238 (1828) (stating that the “principles of the common law” applicable “to judgments of the tribunals of foreign countries” also applied “to the judgments of the courts of the several States when sought to be enforced by the judiciary power of any State other than that in which they were rendered” ). ")

However, since the Supreme Court’s decision in Pennoyer, the Court has interpreted the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment [7](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/overview-of-personal-jurisdiction-and-due-process#fn7amd14 " U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1 ( “[N]or shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” ). ") to limit the power of state courts to render judgments affecting the personal rights of defendants[8](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/overview-of-personal-jurisdiction-and-due-process#fn8amd14 " Although the bulk of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence concerns the constitutionality of courts’ exercise of personal jurisdiction over defendants, the Court has addressed personal jurisdiction over plaintiffs in at least one case. See Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Shutts, 472 U.S. 797, 811–12 (1985) (upholding a Kansas trial court’s assertion of personal jurisdiction over nonresident class-action plaintiffs based on the mailing of an “opt-out notice” to the plaintiffs even though their contacts with the forum might not have been sufficient to satisfy the demands of due process had they been defendants in a lawsuit). ") who do not reside within the state’s territory.[9](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/overview-of-personal-jurisdiction-and-due-process#fn9amd14 " See, e.g., World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286, 291 (1980) ( “The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment limits the power of a state court to render a valid personal judgment against a nonresident defendant.” ) (citing Kulko v. Superior Court, 436 U.S. 84, 91 (1978)). “A judgment rendered in violation of due process is void in the rendering State and is not entitled to full faith and credit elsewhere.” Id. As discussed elsewhere in the Constitution Annotated, see , the Due Process Clause also requires that a defendant receive adequate notice that a lawsuit has been brought against him and have the opportunity to respond. See Mullane v. Cent. Hanover Bank & Tr. Co., 339 U.S. 306, 313–14 (1950) ( “An elementary and fundamental requirement of due process in any proceeding which is to be accorded finality is notice reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and afford them an opportunity to present their objections.” ). In addition to complying with the requirements of the Federal Constitution, state courts must also have authority under state law in order to exercise personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant. Oftentimes, states have enacted “long-arm” statutes that grant their courts jurisdiction over nonresidents. See, e.g., Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 410.10 ( “A court of this state may exercise jurisdiction on any basis not inconsistent with the Constitution of this state or of the United States.” ); N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1-75.4 (specifying situations in which the exercise of jurisdiction comports with state law). ") Pennoyer converted the issue of personal jurisdiction into a question of federal constitutional law, allowing a party to obtain direct review of a state court’s judgment in federal court (i.e., review of the judgment on appeal) on the grounds that the state court lacked personal jurisdiction over the party.[10](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/overview-of-personal-jurisdiction-and-due-process#fn10amd14 " Sachs, supra note 3, at 1253 ( “The Fourteenth Amendment remade this picture simply by changing the route for appeal. A judgment without jurisdiction was void; its execution took away property (or, less commonly, liberty) without due process of law. That turned the presence or absence of jurisdiction, full stop, into a matter of constitutional concern.” ). “Execution” of a judgment refers to judicial enforcement of a money judgment, often “by seizing and selling the judgment debtor’s property.” Execution, Black’s Law Dictionary, supra note 1. ") Under the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment , a state court that issued a judgment affecting a nonresident without jurisdiction had violated the constitutional rights of that person by depriving the individual of property without due process of law.[11](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/overview-of-personal-jurisdiction-and-due-process#fn11amd14 " Sachs, supra note 3, at 1253. “Due process” generally refers to the “conduct of legal proceedings according to established rules and principles for the protection and enforcement of private rights, including notice and the right to a fair hearing before a tribunal with the power to decide the case.” Due Process, Black’s Law Dictionary, supra note 1. ")

Over the years, the Supreme Court has offered three main justifications for the constitutional constraints on a court’s assertion of personal jurisdiction over nonresident persons and corporations. First, each state’s status as a “co-equal sovereign” in a federal system of government implies at least some limits on the power of its courts to render judgments affecting the rights of entities outside of that state’s boundaries.[12](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/overview-of-personal-jurisdiction-and-due-process#fn12amd14 " See Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, No. 16-466, slip op. at 6 (U.S. June 19, 2017) ( “As we have put it, restrictions on personal jurisdiction ‘are more than a guarantee of immunity from inconvenient or distant litigation. They are a consequence of territorial limitations on the power of the respective States.’” ) (quoting Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U.S. 235, 251 (1958)); World-Wide Volkswagen, 444 U.S. at 292 (stating that the requirement that a defendant have minimum contacts with the forum “acts to ensure that the States, through their courts, do not reach out beyond the limits imposed on them by their status as coequal sovereigns in a federal system” ); id. at 293 ( “The sovereignty of each State, in turn, implied a limitation on the sovereignty of all of its sister States—a limitation express or implicit in both the original scheme of the Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment.” ). ") Second, constitutional limits on personal jurisdiction attempt to address concerns about the unfairness of subjecting defendants to litigation in a distant or inconvenient forum.[13](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/overview-of-personal-jurisdiction-and-due-process#fn13amd14 " <span class="cite cite-t