[Lurking Libertarian]

This is an important decision, cutting back on the concept of "general jurisdiction."

Background: suppose a driver from California gets into a car accident in Nevada. The other driver can sue the Californian in Utah, because that's where the accident happened. This is called "specific jurisdiction."

Or, the other driver can sue the Californian in California, because that's his home state. The case has nothing to do with California, but a California resident can be sued in his home state for anything he did anywhere in the world. That's called "general jurisdiction."

In the case of a corporation, many states (especially, but certainly not exclusively, California) said that there was general jurisdiction over a corporation that did a lot of business in the state, because that state was like its "home." What the Court did today-- and this changes a lot of law in a lot of states-- is to say that a corporation's "home" is only where its headquarters is. So a corporation is still subject to "specific jurisdiction" in any state where it (allegedly) did something wrong, but is subject to "general jurisdiction" only in its real "home."

[Lurking Libertarian]

The other driver can sue the Californian in Utah

That should have been "sue the Californian in Nevada." Ooops!

[apillar]

I wonder if this will have any impact on the IRS going after foreign banks that they accuse of helping Americans hide money from the taxman offshore “the old Swiss Bank Account”... Even though it might be perfectly legal in the country the bank is headquartered in...

[ZULU]

I don’t like multi-nationals. I think they serve one-worlders and work to achieve a one-wolrd government.

[Socon-Econ]

I don’t like multi-nationals. I think they serve one-worlders and work to achieve a one-world government.

*********

Fortunately, due process of law does not depend on whether a defendant is liked. Most of those who surf this site would not be liked by a whole lot of people.

[count-your-change]

From the story it appears that the Mercedes subsidiary corp. that operates in Cal. was being sued for claims against the parent corp.

And the court said the connection of the two did not permit this.

[Alberta's Child]

The bigger issue is that so many of these multi-national corporations were being sued in the U.S. because we're probably the only country in the world that would even bother allowing our courts to be clogged with this kind of nonsense.

If someone has a problem with what Daimler AG did in Argentina, then they should deal with it in Argentina -- or in Germany.

[BuckeyeTexan]

FReepmail me to subscribe to or unsubscribe from the SCOTUS ping list.

[mrsmith]

‘In the European Union, for example, a corporation may generally be sued in the nation in which it is “domiciled,” a term defined to refer only to the location of the corporation’s “statutory seat,” “central administration,” or “principal place of business.”’

LOL!
That’s our Ginsburg... always looking to anything but the Constitution of The United States of America.
Oh well, worked out this time.