Personal Jurisdiction Research Articles

Taking Liberties: The Personal Jurisdiction of Military Commissions

On September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda operatives attacked civilian and military targets on US territory, causing thousands of deaths and billions of dollars of economic loss. The next day, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1368 characterizing the attack by Al Qaeda as a threat to international peace and security and recognizing the right of states to use armed force in self defense.

How Congress Should Fix Personal Jurisdiction

Personal jurisdiction is a mess, and only Congress can fix it. Courts have sought a single doctrine that simultaneously guarantees convenience for plaintiffs, fairness for defendants, and legitimate authority for the tribunal. With these goals in conflict, each new fact pattern has pulled precedent in a different direction, robbing litigants of certainty and blunting the force of our substantive law. Solving the problem starts with reframing it. Rather than ask where a case may be heard, we should ask who may hear it. If the parties are from the same state, that state's courts are open. If not, the federal courts are. But today's law, thinking about places instead of persons, sows unnecessary confusion by obliging federal courts to follow state jurisdictional rules. This is a mistake, and something we can change. Following the invitation of a recent Supreme Court plurality, this Article suggests a system of nationwide federal personal jurisdiction, relieving federal courts of their jurisdictional dependence on state borders. In a federal forum, the court usually has undoubted authority over the parties--whose convenience can be addressed through well-crafted venue rules, backstopped by due process guarantees. Because our procedural rules have grown up in dependence on state jurisdiction, the Article goes on to draft legislative language addressing the new system's consequences for venue, choice of law, appeal rights, and other related issues. The Article's goal isn't to defend one specific proposal, but to encourage a variety of new proposals and, eventually, to change the direction of the debate. Scholars should spend more time thinking about the jurisdictional rules we would write for ourselves--which the Constitution actually lets us do, at least for federal courts. Only Congress can fix personal jurisdiction; we should start telling it how.

Purposeful Un-Availment: Why a Justice Brennan Approach to Personal Jurisdiction Would Save Indiana from the Problems of Nicastro

Purposeful Un-Availment: Why a Justice Brennan Approach to Personal Jurisdiction Would Save Indiana from the Problems of Nicastro

<b> Crianças-soldado no conflito em Serra Leoa: direitos humanos, direito internacional humanitário e/ou direito international penal </b> - doi: 10.5102/rdi.v9i2.1845

This article discusses the role of international law in the characterization of children as perpetrators, victims and witnesses in the armed confl ict in Sierra Leone. Th e fi rst part of the article situates the establishment of the Special Court for Sierra Leone among the eff orts to combat impunity. Th e second part considers the extent to which the criminalization of forced recruitment and forced slavery by the Statute of the Special Court is in agreement with the protection aff orded to children by international human rights conventions and international humanitarian law treaties ratifi ed by Sierra Leone. Finally, the third part of the article discusses the possible attribution of criminal responsibility to children as provided in the Statute of the Special Court. Th is possibility is examined in light of the defi nition of the crime of forced recruitment and the personal jurisdiction of the Special Court. It is arguedthat the international community provided a space for contradictory understandings of the experience of child soldiers in the Statute of the Special Court. As a result, it prevented the coherent development of international law as an instrument capable of ensuring the protection of children during armed confl icts.

A Call for a Federal Long Arm Statute to Confer Lawful Authority Over Nonresidents on the State Courts

The United States Supreme Court decided two cases involving personal jurisdiction in 2011, but once again it failed to clarify important issues that have divided the lower courts for decades. This Article offers possible reasons for the Supreme Court’s apparent inability to provide clear and predictable rules for personal jurisdiction and recommends federal legislation and a network of treaties with foreign nations to authorize state courts to assert jurisdiction over nonresident defendants.The American law of personal jurisdiction has developed out of the United States Supreme Court’s review of the constitutionality of state courts’ assertions of jurisdiction over nonresident defendants pursuant to state long arm statutes. State legislatures and courts have acted to extend the personal jurisdiction of the state courts to the maximum extent that the Supreme Court will allow in order to provide as much justice to their citizens as possible, instead of seeking a fair allocation of jurisdiction among the state courts by balancing the interests of residents and nonresidents. In reviewing the constitutionality of state court assertions of jurisdiction, the Supreme Court has had to rely on the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. Unfortunately, the Due Process Clause is so vague that it is difficult to derive predictable rules for personal jurisdiction from it, and it is also difficult for the Due Process Clause to keep up with changes in technology and commerce. Moreover, the Supreme Court’s review of state court assertions of jurisdiction is properly limited to determining whether the assertions of jurisdiction are within the maximum range permitted by the Due Process Clause, as opposed to providing for a fair allocation of jurisdiction with clear and predictable rules. It is therefore futile to expect the United States Supreme Court and all the states to develop an adequate legal framework for personal jurisdiction without assistance from Congress and treaties with foreign nations. The plurality opinion in J. McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro provides support for the proposition that federal legislation and treaties would comply with the Due Process Clause by conferring lawful authority on the state courts to exercise jurisdiction over nonresidents.

A Solution to the Problems Generated by the Supreme Court’s Case-by-Case Approach to Personal Jurisdiction

The current plethora of doctrines surrounding the law of personal jurisdiction has added more confusion to the law than it has coherence. Among other things, these doctrines confuse the sufficient with the necessary and they elevate the technicalities of doctrine over the fundamental principles at stake. The 2011 Supreme Court’s opinions, Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown and J. McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro are just two recent examples of that phenomenon. This article argues that since the decision in International Shoe, which focused more on fundamental principles than it did on the niceties of doctrine, the Supreme Court has moved more steadily toward a technical and specialized approach to personal jurisdiction doctrine that has ended up confusing lower courts and the Supreme Court itself. Thus, by deconstructing the law of personal jurisdiction, and carefully examining over one hundred years of the Court’s jurisprudence as well as lower courts’ confusion, the article suggests to clear the confusion by returning to the principles traceable to International Shoe and Pennoyer and codifying them in a “due-process-style” rule premised on connecting factors and expectations.

Forum Non Conveniens as a Jurisdictional Doctrine

The doctrine of forum non conveniens has played an increasingly important role within the federal judicial system. It applies primarily in cases in which the events giving rise to the asserted claims have occurred outside of the United States. While at one time the doctrine was considered limited and exceptional, today its invocation and enforcement has become routine. Unfortunately, the standards under which the doctrine is applied are indeterminate and unpredictable. Essentially, district courts are given a broad, case-management authority to balance the conveniences of the parties and the judicial system in determining whether to decline or to exercise the jurisdiction conferred by Congress. This balance-of-conveniences model has been borrowed from the law of venue; it reflects no more than the standards that a district court applies when determining whether it should transfer a case to another federal district — a determination that has no substantive consequences whatsoever. However, a forum non conveniens dismissal is, in fact, not premised on a venue judgment, but on a jurisdictional judgment that will deny access to the federal judicial system, and the consequence of such dismissal is much more severe than the consequence of a venue transfer. Indeed, it is often the case that a forum non conveniens dismissal ends the litigation and denies access to justice — Ecuador v. Chevron and Delgado v. Shell Oil Co. are just two dramatic-illustrative examples. This article returns the doctrine to its intended operation, namely, as an antidote for exorbitant exercises of personal jurisdiction to be used only in extraordinary circumstances. It also suggests the adoption of a statute designed to limit the scope of a district court’s discretion in applying forum non conveniens by refocusing the inquiry on the jurisdictional roots of the doctrine.

The Purposeful Availment Trap

“The Purposeful Availment Trap” represents a very careful and powerful synthesis of years of studies on the theme of personal jurisdiction. In the essay we demonstrate how the Supreme Court’s current struggles on the theme of personal jurisdiction are the result of the purposeful availment “trap” that the Supreme Court has itself created. By interpreting its own interpretations, the Supreme Court got lost in dogma and dicta that make its opinions hard to reconcile with the fundamental principles of due process as articulated in International Shoe. This essay also highly benefits from a dialogue between the civil law and common law world, that we both respectively represent.

Re-Examining New York’s Law of Personal Jurisdiction after Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown and J. McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro

On June 27, 2011, the Supreme Court announced two decisions striking down state court rulings because they violated the constitutional limits governing the exercise of jurisdiction over foreign entities: Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, in which the Court held that North Carolina had contravened the rules cabining “general” jurisdiction, and J. McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro, in which the same fate befell New Jersey’s attempt to rely on “specific” jurisdiction. The two cases are significant not only because they reversed the state courts but also because twenty-five years had passed since the Court had last decided a personal jurisdiction case, leaving contemporary state courts to interpret increasingly obsolete doctrine when dealing with relevant constitutional challenges. In the context of the present symposium we address the important question: How do — or should — these cases affect New York’s jurisdiction jurisprudence? In this Article we first describe the background cases that have informed the development of contemporary doctrines of personal jurisdiction. Second, we discuss the impact of Goodyear Dunlop, pointing out that a reasonable reading of the case would require some restriction of New York’s general jurisdiction over corporations. Third, we read the tea leaves left in the brew of the three different opinions — none of which commanded a majority — in Nicastro. We close with a Conclusion and some observations.

Enhancing Traditional Law Teaching to Produce Measurable Gains

A line of previous studies indicate that, while the traditional case-dialogue method of law teaching does not diminish students’ skill of legal reasoning, it fails to produce any significant learning gains. The study reported in this paper examines the impact of introducing to a traditional law school course a short writing exercise accompanied by formative feedback from the instructor. The study involved 82 students from a single section of the first-semester Legal Process (Civil Procedure I) course. All students completed a pre-test, mid-test, and post-test. Each test used multiple choice questions designed to assess students’ legal reading and cross-case reasoning skills. Half of the class (Group 1) completed the writing exercise before the mid-test and while they were in the midst of the personal jurisdiction unit which was the subject of the assignment. The other half of the class (Group 2) completed the writing exercise after the mid-test and prior to the post-test, two weeks following the completion of the personal jurisdiction unit.The study results indicate that both Group 1 and Group 2 achieved some significant learning gains. This finding supplements the findings of previous studies that indicate that no significant learning gains result when the traditional teaching method is used exclusively. It is noteworthy that Group 1 achieved significantly greater learning gains than Group 2, indicating that a writing exercise completed in the midst of a unit of study is more beneficial than an exercise completed following the completion of a unit of study. This finding held true across the entire span of the study. Thus, students in Group 2 failed to catch up to students in Group 1 even after completing the writing exercise. In addition, LSAT scores failed to predict the learning gains for Group 1, while these aptitude scores did predict gains for Group 2. Thus, low LSAT students in Group 1 benefited as much as high LSAT students in Group 1, while this was not true for students in Group 2.In summary, this study indicates that the introduction of a modest educational intervention (i.e., a short writing assignment accompanied by formative feedback) within the context of a traditional law course produces greater learning gains than those produced by the traditional teaching method alone. This was especially true for students who completed the writing exercise while they were in the midst of struggling with the relevant substantive law material.

It's All About the People: Personal Jurisdiction, Lord of the Rings, and Classroom Communities in Civil Procedure I

This article describes my ongoing experiments with “learning communities” and “spiral curricula” in my Civil Procedure I classes, as influenced by my eight years as a sole practitioner in Western Kentucky. Despite endorsement from many education theorists and classroom teachers and potential effectiveness in combating student disaffection, neither has made more than the shallowest dent in legal education. “Classroom community” implies a less stratified and more culturally respectful education experience that is more rewarding, more honorable and more likely to be urban law school graduates’ professional future. Spiral curriculum design facilitates analytical depth that leads to a sense of the law’s rhythms critical to high performance as a generalist.My Spring 2009 Civil Procedure I class created my first “community in the classroom,” and its dynamics are repeatable. Students spun a web of intergenerational, multiplex relationships that are the essence of a “community of memory” and institutionalized the “patterns of commitment” that shaped the experiences of those who came later. These have led to enthusiasm about personal jurisdiction – “love” if you are “Michael – that is disproportionate to that topic’s entertainment value. Woven throughout this article are vignettes and voices that demonstrate students' engagement and emerging sense of justice.Part II explains my spiraling syllabus design that facilitates analytical depth and appreciation for the very real people their blossoming legal philosophies may govern. Part III describes the course’s assessment package – call it “Justice Brennan Meets The Lord of the Rings in 2009 – that tests analysis while reinforcing students’ sense of membership in a community with a past, present and future. The article concludes that the structure and content of the course facilitated unusually intense student engagement, enriched students’ academic experience, and opened a conceptual door to an alternate professional future.”

Personal Jurisdiction in a Global World: A Comment on the Supreme Court’s Recent Decisions in Goodyear Dunlop Tires and Nicastro

Last June the Supreme Court decided two momentous personal jurisdiction cases: one, Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations v. Brown, limited general jurisdiction to its rightful narrow role as a way to establish state court jurisdiction, while the other, J. McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro, barely staved off a second attempt to narrow “stream of commerce” as a vehicle for jurisdiction. Although both cases made those valuable contributions to doctrine, they both denied a court in the United States to United States citizens who sued foreign defendants for torts, effectively leaving the plaintiffs without remedies for the allegedly negligent acts of the defendants. Goodyear Dunlop Tires involved an accident outside the United States, while Nicastro arose from an injury in New Jersey. With globalization bringing increased international business and travel, there is sure to be a significant increase in injuries suffered by U.S. by citizens as a result of the negligent activities of foreign businesses and a resultant increase in the type of litigation involved in the two new cases. This article critiques both cases and then examines whether non-citizens are protected by constitutional personal jurisdiction rights. Outside the context of personal jurisdiction, the Supreme Court has held since the nineteenth century that the scope of constitutional protections varies depending on two factors: whether a party is a citizen of the United States or a foreign national and whether a non-citizen resides in the United States or abroad. Without any real consideration, the Supreme Court in Goodyear Dunlop Tires and Nicastro applied the same personal jurisdiction law to non-citizen, non-resident defendants as it applies to defendants who are U.S. citizens. This article argues that non-resident, non-citizens defendants are not protected by the constitutional personal jurisdiction law developed in domestic litigation. Freed from constitutional constraints, the Supreme Court has the ability to fashion a new law of personal jurisdiction for foreign defendants better suited for the tort claims of U.S. citizens, taking into account the interests of the U.S. plaintiffs. The article provides a foundation for developing a new law of personal jurisdiction for foreign defendants.

The Postman Always Rings Twice: New York Appeals Court Validates Service of Process by Mail on Canadian Defendants

The recent decision of the New York Appeals Division in New York State Thruway Auth. v Fenech represents an American revolution in conflict of laws with fundamental implications to cross-border litigation.The Fenech decision overturns prior precedent against foreign service of process by mail under Article 10(a) of the Hague Service Convention. If the Fenech decision stands, it will put many process servers out of work and render service through the official diplomatic channels of the Central Authority moot. Canada should formally withdraw its Declaration under Article 10(a) of the Hague Service Convention that it does not object to service by postal channels. Otherwise, Canadian defendants in foreign proceedings are at a marked disadvantage, both in terms of challenging a foreign court’s assertion of personal jurisdiction and subject-matter jurisdiction. Personal service should remain the cornerstone of jurisdiction, bounded by the pillars of comity, reciprocity, good faith and order and fairness.

The Recognition, and Res Judicata Effect, of a United States Class Actions Judgment in England: A Rebuttal of Vivendi

United States' courts have proven willing to certify multi‐jurisdictional class actions which purport to adjudicate the claims of both American and foreign (i.e., non‐US‐domiciled) class members. This article contends, however, that a class actions judgment/settlement issued by a US court would not be recognised, and would not be given preclusive effect, in England, should absent English class members wish to re‐litigate the same grievance before an English court. Specifically, it is argued that two separate preconditions for such recognition and preclusive effect would fail, viz, a US court would usually lack the requisite ‘personal jurisdiction’ over absent English class members; and the necessary ‘identity of parties’ would be absent. The article seeks to anticipate the appropriate answer to a conundrum which is certain to arise for future English judicial consideration, whilst acknowledging the uneasy fit which currently exists between English private international law and multi‐jurisdictional class actions.

Inter-state service of process in the Nigeria Federation and the Sheriffs and Civil Process Act

Chapter VII of the Nigeria Sheriffs and Civil Process Act is modelled along the Australian Service of Process Act and provides for service of claim forms obtained from one state on a defendant in another state, subject to certain prescribed endorsements on the claim form, in the same way as if the service were done in the state of issue of the claim form. This and other provisions of the Act ought to warrant the treatment of service in another constituent state of the Nigerian federation of originating court process differently from service outside the country. Unfortunately the policy thrust of the chapter has not been honoured by the courts, who have treated a sister state as the English courts would treat another country: by imposing the condition that leave of court should be obtained. The courts have also failed to appreciate that the chapter generally recognises the writ rule and vests personal jurisdiction over a defendant on the court of issue of the claim form, while providing grounds for defendants to protest jurisdiction. This latter attitude is a result of the general lack of appreciation of the difference between choice of jurisdiction and choice of law in the conflict of laws, resulting in the wrong application of local venue rules and in rejecting jurisdiction conferred at private international law on the ground of territorial limit of jurisdiction to causes having foreign or inter-state connection. On the other hand, the courts have wrongly applied the provision of the chapter to claim forms obtained from the Federal High Court whose jurisdiction already extends to the whole country. This article critically examines the state of the case law on these as well as the effect of non-compliance with the requisite endorsements and also identifies that where defendants are sued in their state of residence, the court can neither on the excuse of the Sheriffs and Civil Process Act nor on the excuse of the rule of private international law, decline jurisdiction on the ground that the facts occurred elsewhere.

The Persistent Problem of Purposeful Availment

For the second time in twenty-five years, personal jurisdiction has perplexed the U.S. Supreme Court. The problem is purposeful availment. All of the Justices agree that specific jurisdiction does not exist without purposeful availment, but the Court could not cobble together a majority opinion in J. McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro to clarify what purposeful availment means or what it requires.This Article sets forth a simple — yet meaningful and necessary — solution. Purposeful availment is best understood by its negative: no court should find a nonresident defendant subject to personal jurisdiction for a contact with the forum state that the defendant could not reasonably prevent. Put another way, where it is not reasonably feasible for a defendant to sever its connection with the state, purposeful availment does not exist. Conversely, where it is reasonably feasible for a defendant to prevent its contact with a state but it has not done so, there is presumptively purposeful availment and, subject to the fairness balancing, specific jurisdiction.This principle is consistent with the understanding reached by the Court more than twenty-five years ago and shared by a majority of the current Justices that personal jurisdiction is an individual liberty interest that is protected by the Due Process Clause. Because it is an individual liberty interest, the purposeful availment requirement must be applied in such a manner that an economic actor can structure its conduct so as to avoid subjecting itself to jurisdiction in a disfavored forum.Application of this principle leads to clear, but certain to be controversial, resolution of several questions left unresolved by the Court in McIntyre v. Nicastro. It also makes clear that Nicastro itself was wrongly decided. First, component part manufacturers generally do not control the distribution and point of sale of the end product into which their component part is incorporated. Thus, absent some additional conduct targeting the forum state, component part manufacturers do not purposefully avail themselves of a particular state where the end product is sold, even where there is a regular flow of a large quantum of the component parts into that state. Second, end product manufacturers retain nearly complete control over the initial point of sale of their products. Thus, an end product manufacturer has purposefully availed itself of every state where the product is sold to consumers — even where the manufacturer sold the product to a distributor who sold the product to a retailer who sold the product to a consumer. Third, a manufacturer who markets its product nationwide has purposefully availed itself of every state where the product is sold and causes injury.

Personal Jurisdiction and Product Liability

This article is the first sustained economic analysis of personal jurisdiction. It argues that plaintiffs should be able to sue where they purchased a product which caused injury. Such a rule allows manufacturers to set prices which take into account the quality of the forum state’s courts. If the courts are biased against out-of-state corporations, have overly generous judges or juries, or apply substantive law which is excessively pro-consumer, manufacturers can, through contracts with distributors and retailers, charge a higher price to consumers in that state. This prevents judges and juries from engaging in inter-state redistribution and gives states an incentive to provide efficient substantive rules and adjudicative institutions. In contrast, a rule which required suit in a place more fully under the control of the defendant – such as the place of manufacture or the location of the distributor – would encourage manufacturers to select inefficiently pro-defendant jurisdictions for their activities. Because consumers are unlikely to know where products are manufactured or distributed and are unlikely to be able to evaluate the quality of the law in those states, it is implausible to think that the market will give manufacturers incentives to locate their jurisdiction-triggering activities in states with efficient laws and institutions. This analysis is particularly important, because the Supreme Court has recently deadlocked on personal jurisdiction in product liability cases.

General Personal Jurisdiction After Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown

In June 2011 the Supreme Court published its first major decisions on due process limits on personal jurisdiction in decades. Though the cases provided an opportunity to remove longstanding confusion, the decisions expose new divisions on the Court that give rise to new uncertainties.This Article focuses on the less controversial case. Seeming to express an emerging consensus with respect to general jurisdiction, the unanimous opinion in Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations S.A. v. Brown announces a new, restrictive formula for general jurisdiction: for a state to exercise general personal jurisdiction over a corporation, the corporation must be incorporated in the state, maintain its principal place of business in the state or have such continuous and systematic ties in a forum state that is “at home.”Exploring the decision and its early reception by lower courts, this Article contends that the opinion is ambiguous. On the one hand, it can be read to support contacts-based general jurisdiction over foreign corporations that are sufficiently active in the state. On the other hand, it can be read to restrict general jurisdiction to those corporations that maintain a legal home in the state by incorporating under the laws of the state or by engaging in such a level of activity that the state becomes the equivalent of their principal place of business.The different readings produce different results in many routine situations. In fact, the Article shows they produce different answers to the question posed during oral argument as to whether Goodyear USA (which operates a factory in North Carolina) would be subject to general jurisdiction in that state without its consent.In addition to explaining divergent positions on the Court, the Article proposes a middle path, a fair reading of the opinion that avoids the most tendentious interpretations and that implements the Court’s shared commitment to eliminating general jurisdiction over a broad category of cases.Finally, the Article identifies specific problem areas that the decision leaves for future judicial elaboration and examines early decisions by lower courts that have begun to grapple with these problems. The Article offers courts and litigants a useful resource for understanding and applying the new doctrine.

Online Advertising and Marketing: Personal Jurisdiction and Its Potential Implications

Modern telecommunication technology ushered in an era of unprecedented growth of innovative advertising vehicles with increasingly global reach. The online advertising industry grew more than 10-fold in the last decade. However, due to their virtually unlimited reach, online advertising and marketing are vulnerable to lawsuits with parties based in other states or countries. This article presents a discussion and interpretation of the latest legal developments of the law of personal jurisdiction and its impact on online advertisers, as well as some recommendations that might help advertisers to assess and mitigate their risk of being sued in another jurisdiction.

Personal Jurisdiction in the Twenty-First Century: The Ironic Legacy of Justice Brennan

In 2011, the Supreme Court decided two personal jurisdiction cases. They are the Court's first personal jurisdiction decisions in 21 years. More remarkably, they are the first cases since the Eisenhower Administration in which the Court has applied the iconic International Shoe decision without the participation of Justice William J. Brennan. From McGee in 1957 through Burnham in 1990, Brennan was there. No justice wrote more opinions about personal jurisdiction than he. Yet, for all his efforts to explain his position and persuade his colleagues, he commanded a majority only once, in Burger King in 1985. This article traces Justice Brennan’s personal jurisdiction jurisprudence. Through 1984, he adopted a 'melange' approach, in which all relevant factors are considered ad hoc under an overarching rubric of fairness. Justice Black pioneered the approach, and Brennan championed it for decades. When it became apparent that the Court was going in another direction – one which gave primacy to considerations of defendant-initiated contact with the forum rather than to fairness – Brennan capitulated. This enabled him to write the majority opinion in Burger King, in which he attempted to convert the regnant contact-focused theory into one engaging broader considerations of fairness. The century (and Brennan’s career) ended with the Court’s lamentable efforts in Asahi and Burnham, in which no view could muster more than four votes on the Court. Now we have a new century and two new cases. Though Brennan is cited in each opinion in the two cases, this article concludes that the Court has rejected virtually all of Brennan’s positions in personal jurisdiction. But Brennan’s jurisprudence may have an unexpected and ironic legacy, tracing to a little-noticed portion of his Burger King opinion. Brennan created a regime in which it is virtually impossible to defeat the exercise of jurisdiction by appealing to reasonableness or fairness. The only realistic way for a court to reject jurisdiction is to find that the defendant created no contact with the forum. This explains the obsession with contact in the recent cases and the strained efforts of six justices in one of the new cases to resist finding that a manufacturer can be sued in the state in which its machine caused physical injury.