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38 Hastings L.J. 855 (1986-1987)
The Nature of Legal Argument: The Personal Jurisdiction Paradigm

handle is hein.journals/hastlj38 and id is 875 raw text is: The Nature of Legal Argument: The Personal Jurisdiction Paradigm by RICHARD K. GREENSTEIN* The idea of black letter law seduces us. We crave coherence and certainty in the law as we do in many areas of our lives. We know better, of course. We know that legal doctrine is often indeterminate-that in a particular case, perfectly convincing arguments supporting one conclu- sion can often be countered by perfectly convincing arguments support- ing the opposite conclusion. Yet we continue to search for rules, principles, tests, approaches-anything that will impose order on doc- trine. Nowhere is the inherent frustration of this quest more vividly il- lustrated than in the debates concerning the due process limitations on the assertion of personal jurisdiction by state courts. The conventional view of personal jurisdiction' goes something like this: In the beginning, the Supreme Court understood jurisdiction to be fundamentally the exercise of physical power by the state, limited, by analogy to principles of international law, to the state's geographic terri- tory. Accordingly, a state court could not, consistent with due process, assert jurisdiction over someone beyond its borders unless that individual somehow submitted himself or otherwise consented to jurisdiction. This was the teaching of Pennoyer v. Neff. 2 This early view was thought to have changed in 1948 when the Supreme Court announced a new analysis of the due process limitations on personal jurisdiction. In International Shoe Co. v. Washington,3 the * Visiting Associate Professor of Law, Temple University. B.A. 1970, Wesleyan Uni- versity; J.D. 1973, Vanderbilt University; LL.M. 1982, Temple University. I wish to express my deep gratitude to Professors Jane Baron, Robert Bartow, and David Sonenshein, of Temple University School of Law, for their exceptionally helpful insights in response to an earlier version of this article. I would also like to blame them for all the remaining defects in my analysis, but I cannot; these lingering deficiencies are my responsibil- ity alone. 1. Although this Essay focuses on in personam jurisdiction, it should be kept in mind that derivative principles apply to in rem and quasi in rem jurisdiction. Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U.S. 186, 207-12 (1977). 2. 95 U.S. 714 (1878). 3. 326 U.S. 310 (1945). Although the Pennoyer controversy arose prior to the ratifica- [8551

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