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64 Emory L.J. Online 2001 (2014-2015)

handle is hein.journals/emyon64 and id is 1 raw text is: 











       BE  CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR: GOODYEAR,
       DAIMLER, AND THE EVISCERATION OF GENERAL
                           JURISDICTION

                           Thomas   C. Arthur*
                           Richard  D. Freer

                                 ABSTRACT

    International Shoe and  its progeny  permit states to  assert general
jurisdiction over nonresidents that have continuous and systematic contacts
with the forum. In Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown decided
in 2011, and  Daimler AG   v. Bauman  decided in early 2014, the Supreme
Court made  a sharp break from these cases, stating that general jurisdiction
based on minimum   contacts now exists only where a defendant is at home.
The  opinions in these cases are unpersuasive. While the Court purported to
follow International Shoe and its two prior decisions on general jurisdiction,
this simply is not so. Nor does the Court justify its use of an analogy to the
traditional basis of domicile to determine to legitimate scope of contacts-based
jurisdiction. Arguably, an analogy to presence would be more  apt. Worse,
these two cases, when  added to the Court's grudging approach  to specific
jurisdiction, put some plaintiffs at risk of being unable to bring a defendant to
justice in an American court.

    Goodyear and Daimler could have been decided on far narrower grounds;
the Court should read  them in the future to be limited to those grounds. It
should restrict the novel at home test to cases that have no relation at all,
not even the plaintiffs residence, to the forum state. For all other cases of
general jurisdiction the Court  should provide  a  'floor of appropriate
systematic and continuous contacts necessary in every case. And it should
further direct the lower courts to employ the 'fairness factors developed in
its specific jurisdiction cases to ensure that jurisdiction will be available in
those cases in which it is still needed.


L.Q.C. Lamar Professor of Law, Emory University.
Robert Howell Hall Professor of Law, Emory University.

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