Also known as: minimum contact test · minimum contacts · International Shoe test
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A constitutional standard for determining whether a court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant. The defendant must have contacts with the forum state of such quality and nature that maintaining the suit does not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice. Purposeful availment by the defendant is required, and unilateral activity by the plaintiff cannot create the necessary connection.
Matthew Martinez, a resident of State A, mailed a contract offer to Michael Miller in State B. Miller signed and returned the document without traveling to State A or initiating any dealings there. When Martinez later sued Miller in State A over a payment dispute, the court dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction because Miller had not purposefully directed any activity toward the forum.
Mercury Industries sent multiple sales representatives into State A to display products and solicit orders from local buyers. The orders became binding only after acceptance at the company's headquarters in State B. When a State A customer sued over a defective product, the court upheld personal jurisdiction because the company's deliberate solicitation established sufficient contacts with the forum.
Maria Morales owned shares in a State A corporation but lived and worked exclusively in State B. A State A plaintiff brought an unrelated breach-of-fiduciary-duty claim and sought to attach the shares to establish jurisdiction. The court dismissed the action because the mere presence of the shares in the forum did not supply minimum contacts tied to the dispute.
Meredith Maxwell lived with her child in State A for several years before moving to State B. The other parent remained in State A and filed a support action there. The court found personal jurisdiction proper because Maxwell's prior residence with the child in the forum created the required connection to the support claim.
Ezra Kulko married Sharon Kulko Horn in 1959 during a three-day stopover in California while en route from a military base in Texas to Korea. Both parties were New York domiciliaries who returned to New York after the marriage and Ezra's service. Their children Darwin and Ilsa were born in New York in 1961 and 1962. The family lived together in New York City until their separation in March 1972. Following the separation, Sharon moved to San Francisco, California. In September 1972, Sharon flew to New York to sign a separation agreement providing that the children would spend school years with their father and vacations with their mother in exchange for $3,000 annual child support payments during her custody periods. Sharon obtained a Haitian divorce incorporating the agreement and returned to California, where she remarried. The children resided with their father during the school year until December 1973, when Ilsa remained in California after her father bought her a one-way ticket. In January 1976 Darwin flew to California using a ticket sent by his mother. Less than one month after Darwin's arrival, Sharon commenced an action in California Superior Court to establish the Haitian divorce decree as a California judgment, modify it to award her full custody, and increase the father's child-support obligations. Ezra appeared specially and moved to quash service on the ground that he lacked sufficient minimum contacts with California. The trial court denied the motion. The Court of Appeal affirmed. The California Supreme Court sustained the rulings in a 4-2 decision before Ezra appealed to the United States Supreme Court.
View caseMatrix Technologies manufactured component parts in a foreign country and sold them to a company that incorporated the parts into products distributed nationwide. One product reached State A and caused injury there. The court held that mere awareness that the parts might enter the forum through the stream of commerce did not constitute purposeful availment sufficient for jurisdiction.
In September 1978 Gary Zurcher lost control of his Honda motorcycle on Interstate Highway 80 in Solano County, California, and collided with a tractor. Zurcher suffered severe injuries while his passenger and wife Ruth Ann Moreno was killed. In September 1979 Zurcher filed a product liability action in the Superior Court of California for Solano County against Cheng Shin Rubber Industrial Co., Ltd., the Taiwanese manufacturer of the motorcycle tube, and other defendants. Zurcher alleged that defects in the tire, tube, and sealant caused the accident. Cheng Shin filed a cross-complaint seeking indemnification from Asahi Metal Industry Co., Ltd., the Japanese manufacturer of the tube’s valve assembly. Zurcher’s claims against Cheng Shin and the other defendants were eventually settled and dismissed, leaving only Cheng Shin’s indemnity action against Asahi. Asahi is a Japanese corporation. It manufactures tire valve assemblies in Japan and sells them to Cheng Shin and other tire manufacturers for use as components in finished tire tubes, with all sales to Cheng Shin taking place in Taiwan. Asahi sold Cheng Shin 150,000 valve assemblies in 1978, 500,000 in 1979, 500,000 in 1980, 100,000 in 1981, and 100,000 in 1982. Those sales accounted for 1.24 percent of Asahi’s income in 1981 and 0.44 percent in 1982. Cheng Shin alleged that approximately 20 percent of its United States sales occur in California. In 1983 an attorney for Cheng Shin examined valve stems at one cycle store in Solano County and found that of 115 tire tubes, 12 Asahi-marked valve stems were incorporated into Cheng Shin tubes. An affidavit from a Cheng Shin manager stated that discussions with Asahi had covered worldwide sales including the United States. Asahi’s president stated the company never contemplated that its limited sales would subject it to lawsuits in California. The Superior Court denied Asahi’s motion to quash service of summons. The Court of Appeal issued a peremptory writ commanding the Superior Court to quash service. The California Supreme Court reversed. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseMeridian Motors maintained its headquarters and principal manufacturing facilities in State B. Although some of its tires were sold in State A through independent dealers, the company conducted no other operations there. When a State A resident sued over an accident that occurred outside the forum, the court ruled that the sporadic sales did not render the company at home in State A for general jurisdiction purposes.
In April 2004, a bus carrying young soccer players from North Carolina overturned on a road outside Paris, France, killing two 13-year-old boys, Julian Brown and Matthew Helms. Their parents, acting as administrators of the boys' estates, filed a wrongful-death suit in the Superior Court of Onslow County, North Carolina, alleging negligence in the design, construction, testing, and inspection of a tire that failed during the trip. The defendants were The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, an Ohio corporation, and three of its indirect subsidiaries incorporated and operating in Luxembourg, Turkey, and France. Goodyear USA maintained plants in North Carolina and did not contest personal jurisdiction, but the foreign subsidiaries moved to dismiss, asserting that North Carolina lacked authority over them. The foreign subsidiaries manufactured tires primarily for European and Asian markets, with tires differing in size and construction from those sold in the United States. They maintained no place of business, employees, or bank accounts in North Carolina, did not design, manufacture, advertise, or sell products there, and the specific Goodyear Regional RHS tire involved in the accident was never distributed in the state, although a small percentage of other tires they produced reached North Carolina through other Goodyear affiliates. The trial court denied the subsidiaries' motion to dismiss. The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed that ruling after finding that the subsidiaries' placement of tires into the stream of commerce supported the exercise of general jurisdiction. The North Carolina Supreme Court denied discretionary review. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseYes. The standard governs all exercises of state-court jurisdiction, including actions that seek to adjudicate interests in property located in the forum. Mere ownership of unrelated property in the state is insufficient to support jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant.
The defendant must purposefully avail itself of the privilege of conducting activities in the forum state so that it invokes the benefits and protections of the forum's laws. Unilateral activity by the plaintiff or a third party cannot satisfy this requirement.
Even when minimum contacts exist, the exercise of jurisdiction must not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice. Courts weigh the burden on the defendant, the forum state's interest, the plaintiff's interest in convenient relief, and the interstate system's interest in efficient resolution.
Yes. In child support proceedings, a nonresident parent's prior residence with the child in the forum state supplies a statutory and constitutional basis for personal jurisdiction under the minimum contacts framework.
…to subject a defendant to a judgment in personam , if he be not present within the territory of the forum, he have certain minimum contacts with it such that the maintenance of the suit does not offend “traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.” Milliken v. Meyer , 311 U. S. 457, 463. See Holmes, J., in…