Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(2)

Kathy Keeton, a resident of New York who assists in producing a magazine bearing her name in several places crediting her with editorial and other work, sued Hustler Magazine, Inc., an Ohio corporation with its principal place of business in California, in the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire. She alleged jurisdiction by reason of diversity of citizenship and claimed to have been libeled in five separate issues of the magazine published between September 1975 and May 1976. Prior to the New Hampshire action, Keeton had initially brought suit for libel and invasion of privacy in Ohio, where the magazine was published, but her libel claim was dismissed as barred by the Ohio statute of limitations and her invasion-of-privacy claim was dismissed as barred by the New York statute of limitations. Hustler Magazine's contacts with New Hampshire consist of the sale of some 10,000 to 15,000 copies of the magazine in that State each month. Keeton's only connection with New Hampshire is the circulation there of copies of the magazine that she assists in producing. The District Court dismissed her suit because it believed that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment forbade the application of New Hampshire’s long-arm statute to acquire personal jurisdiction over the respondent. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed the dismissal in 1982. The Court of Appeals observed that the single publication rule would require awarding damages caused in all states. It also stressed New Hampshire’s unusually long six-year limitations period for libel actions. New Hampshire was the only State where the suit would not have been time-barred when filed in October 1980. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in 1983.

Respondent Shirley Jones, a California resident who lives and works in the state, brought suit in California Superior Court against the National Enquirer, its local distributing company, and petitioners Calder and South for libel, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional harm. The Enquirer is a Florida corporation with its principal place of business in Florida that publishes a national weekly newspaper with a total circulation of over 5 million copies, of which approximately 600,000 are sold in California. Petitioner South is a Florida resident. Petitioner Calder is also a Florida resident. South, a reporter for the Enquirer, wrote the first draft of the challenged article that appeared in the October 9, 1979 issue, conducted most of his research in Florida while making phone calls to sources in California, and called Jones's home shortly before publication to read a draft to her husband. Calder, president and editor of the Enquirer, reviewed and approved the initial evaluation of the article's subject, edited it in final form, and declined to print a retraction requested by Jones. The article concerned the California activities of Jones, an entertainer whose television career was centered in California, and it was drawn from California sources. Jones's husband later filed a voluntary dismissal of his complaint. Petitioners were served with process by mail in Florida and entered special appearances to move to quash service for lack of personal jurisdiction. The Superior Court granted the motion, reasoning that although petitioners' actions in Florida ordinarily would support jurisdiction in California, First Amendment concerns required special solicitude and that Jones's rights could be fully satisfied in her suit against the publisher alone. The California Court of Appeal reversed, concluding that petitioners intended to and did cause tortious injury to Jones in California and that the actions causing those effects, though performed outside the state, provided a valid basis for jurisdiction. The Court of Appeal rejected the Superior Court's view that First Amendment considerations must be weighed against jurisdiction and noted that neither petitioner's contacts with California would support jurisdiction over an unrelated cause of action. The Supreme Court of California denied a timely petition for hearing. On petitioners' appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, probable jurisdiction was postponed and the jurisdictional statement was later treated as a petition for a writ of certiorari, which the Court granted.

Respondent Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée is a Delaware corporation. Its principal place of business is in the Republic of Guinea, where it operates bauxite mines and processing facilities. Forty-nine percent of its stock is owned by the Republic of Guinea. The remaining fifty-one percent is owned by Halco (Mining) Inc., a Pennsylvania company that contracted to procure insurance for CBG. In 1973, Halco instructed broker Marsh & McLennan to obtain $20 million in business interruption coverage. The first $10 million was placed with Insurance Company of North America. The excess $10 million was placed through Bland Payne in the London market with 21 foreign insurers. Fourteen of those insurers are petitioners here. The placing slip was initialed effective February 12, 1974. The excess insurers adopted the INA policy terms. After CBG allegedly suffered mechanical problems causing more than $10 million in losses, it filed a two-count diversity action in the Western District of Pennsylvania in December 1975. CBG named INA on the first count and the excess insurers on the second count. The excess insurers answered by asserting lack of in personam jurisdiction. They later moved for summary judgment on that ground. CBG served its first document request in August 1976. The request sought copies of all business interruption policies issued between 1972 and 1975. After objections and motions to compel, the district court overruled the objections in June 1978. The court later narrowed the request to policies delivered in or covering risks in Pennsylvania. Petitioners stated the documents were held by London brokers. The court ordered them to request the files and gave successive extensions through November 1978. On December 21, 1978, after petitioners offered only to make four million files available in London, the district court warned that failure to produce the information within 60 days would result in an order under Rule 37(b)(2)(A) assuming jurisdiction. On April 19, 1979, the court found the material had not been produced and entered the sanction. It also made independent findings of jurisdiction under the Pennsylvania long-arm statute and by implicit consent through adoption of the INA contract. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the jurisdictional holding as to all but three excess insurers. It relied solely on the validity of the Rule 37 sanction. The Supreme Court granted certiorari because the decision conflicted with Familia de Boom v. Arosa Mercantil, S.A., 629 F.2d 1134 (CA5 1980).

In August 2006, petitioner Anthony Walden, a Georgia police officer serving as a deputized Drug Enforcement Administration agent at the Atlanta airport, received notification from a San Juan airport official about respondents Gina Fiore and Keith Gipson. Fiore and Gipson, professional gamblers with residences in California and Nevada, had been searched by Transportation Security Administration agents at the San Juan airport in Puerto Rico, where nearly $97,000 in cash was discovered in their carry-on bags. Upon their arrival in Atlanta for a connecting flight to Las Vegas, Walden and another agent approached Fiore and Gipson at the departure gate. After questioning them about the cash, which they described as their gambling bank and winnings, Walden conducted a drug-sniffing dog test and seized the funds, advising that the money would be returned upon proof of a legitimate source. After the seizure, Walden helped draft an affidavit to establish probable cause for forfeiture of the funds and forwarded it to a United States Attorney’s Office in Georgia. Respondents later alleged that this affidavit contained false and misleading statements, including misrepresentations about the airport encounter and omissions of exculpatory information regarding the absence of drug evidence and the legitimate origins of the funds. No forfeiture complaint was ultimately filed, and the DEA returned the funds to respondents in March 2007. Respondents then filed a tort suit against Walden in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada, alleging violations of their Fourth Amendment rights under Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents. The District Court dismissed the suit for lack of personal jurisdiction. The Ninth Circuit reversed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.