Personal jurisdiction in Internet cases refers to a growing set of judicial precedents in American courts where personal jurisdiction has been asserted upon defendants based solely on their Internet activities. Personal jurisdiction in American civil procedure law is premised on the notion that a defendant should not be subject to the decisions of a foreign or out of state court, without having "purposely availed" himself of the benefits that the forum state has to offer. Generally, the doctrine is grounded on two main principles: courts should protect defendants from the undue burden of facing litigation in an unlimited number of possibly remote jurisdictions (in line with the due process requirements of the Constitution), and courts should prevent states from infringing on the sovereignty of other states by limiting the circumstances under which defendants can be "haled" into court. In the Internet context, personal jurisdiction cases often involve proprietors of websites or Internet-based services that either advertise or actively promote their businesses nationally, but argue that they do not have sufficient contacts within a particular state to subject them to litigation in that state. With the growth of the Internet, courts have faced the challenge of applying long-standing principles of personal jurisdiction to a borderless communication medium that enables businesses and individuals all over the world to instantaneously interact across state boundaries. This is a rapidly changing area of law without a Supreme Court precedent. There is however, a growing consensus among federal district courts as to how to determine when personal jurisdiction may be asserted in an Internet context.
Types of personal jurisdiction Besides facing constitutional limitations on personal jurisdiction, a court must also comply with state long-arm statutes, which enable personal jurisdiction over a party who has committed a tort within the state. This personal jurisdiction is specific to the act, and a party cannot be sued for unrelated activity. In many instances, state long-arm statutes extend personal jurisdiction to the extent allowed by the U.S. Constitution. There are two kinds of personal jurisdiction, general and specific jurisdiction:
General personal jurisdiction Following the Supreme Court's decisions in Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown (2011) and Daimler AG v. Bauman (2014), a company doing business on the Internet may be sued for any reason in the jurisdiction where it is "at home," typically its place of incorporation. Because general jurisdiction is now quite limited, courts will often look to specific personal jurisdiction to determine whether a company is amenable to suit in a given jurisdiction.
Specific personal jurisdiction In contrast, specific personal jurisdiction allows a defendant to be sued in a forum only on the basis of the defendant's contacts with the forum. A court can establish specific jurisdiction over a defendant only if he or she has "certain minimum contacts" which give rise to the action in question in the forum such that the exercise of jurisdiction "does not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice." Internet cases with an out-of-state defendant will often require the plaintiff to assert specific personal jurisdiction. Where a civil action has been brought based on a defendant's Internet activities, courts have generally declined to assert personal jurisdiction solely on the basis of web advertising. Instead, courts have looked for more active contacts with a forum, such as Internet sales to the forum residents, conducting business in the forum state through numerous contacts, or entering into specific dealings with forum residents. The actual number of visitors to a defendant's website from citizens of the forum state has also sometimes been considered in an analysis of minimum contacts.
Standards for personal jurisdiction in Internet cases In evaluating the assertion of personal jurisdiction in cases involving the Internet, courts have applied both traditional tests and standards customized to the online world.
Traditional tests of jurisdiction
Minimum contacts The United States Supreme Court decided in 1945 in the case of International Shoe v. Washington that for a defendant to be haled into court in a particular jurisdiction it must have at least a minimum level of contact with that state that it could reasonably expect to be sued in the courts of that state. Following International Shoe, courts have generally applied a three-part test in evaluating minimum contacts sufficient for jurisdiction:
(1) The nonresident defendant must do some act or consummate some transaction with the forum or perform some act by which he purposefully avails himself of the privilege of conducting activities in the forum, thereby invoking the benefits and protections[;] (2) the claim must be one which arises out of or results from the defendant's forum-related activities[; and] (3) exercise of jurisdiction must be reasonable.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
