Oh' the Places You Could Go: Corporate Registration as Consent to General Jurisdiction in Multi-Defendant Litigation

Abstract

Throughout the history of the United States, asserting personal jurisdiction over a corporate defendant has become more restrictive. Since Pennoyer, there were many interpretations of where a corporate defendant should expect to defend a suit. The United States Supreme Court in International Shoe and personal jurisdiction cases after that attempted to clarify the constitutionality of asserting personal jurisdiction over a corporate defendant. The standards outlined in Daimler assured corporate defendants that they should expect to defend a suit in a state where they are essentially at home. The restrictive standards for asserting personal jurisdiction over a corporate defendant have allowed room for arguments that corporate registration will suffice as consent to general jurisdiction. Courts around the nation have recognized this argument; however, many courts have not. This tactic in establishing personal jurisdiction is prevalent and has led injured plaintiffs' attempts to assert jurisdiction over a corporate defendant in places they could go for jurisdiction to stick. In multi-defendant product liability or exposure cases, plaintiffs have argued that they are not allowed to obtain full relief in one suit from corporate defendants due to lack of personal jurisdiction for some of the corporate defendants. States such as Pennsylvania have written statutory provisions that protect plaintiffs by explicitly requiring a corporation to consent to general jurisdiction in the state when they register to do business. This Article follows the history of the interpretation of general personal jurisdiction in the United States and seeks to examine multi-defendant cases around the nation where the registration-as-consent theories and other tactics that are introduced to assert personal jurisdiction over a corporate defendant.