Also known as: territoriality principle · territorial principle · territorial jurisdiction
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A foundational doctrine holding that a sovereign state's laws and judicial power operate only within its geographic borders. The principle limits the reach of national statutes and court authority to persons or property inside the territory unless comity or statute provides otherwise.
Maria Lopez and other diners sue Harvest Bistro after a food-poisoning outbreak at a city street festival. Harvest Bistro asks the court to recognize that the festival draws thousands of visitors and ranks as the city's largest annual event. The court grants the request because the scale of the event is common knowledge among residents within the district.
Neff, an Oregon resident, owns land in Oregon but never appears in a California proceeding. Pennoyer obtains a default judgment in California and attempts to execute against the Oregon land. The Supreme Court holds that California lacks power to affect title to property located entirely outside its borders.
In February 1866, J.H. Mitchell obtained a judgment in an Oregon circuit court against Neff for less than $300 in an action for attorney services. At that time, Neff resided outside Oregon, received no personal service of process, and made no appearance in the case. The judgment was entered by default following constructive service by publication as authorized by the Oregon Code for non-resident defendants possessing property within the state. The Oregon Code also provided for attachment of a non-resident's property in money actions. No such attachment occurred with respect to the land at issue. Instead, after the judgment, an execution issued, leading to a levy on the land and its sale at a sheriff's auction. Pennoyer purchased the property at that sale and received a sheriff's deed. Separately, in 1866, the United States issued a patent to Neff for the same tract of land under the Donation Law of Oregon, which Neff valued at $15,000. Neff then brought suit against Pennoyer in the circuit court to recover possession of the premises based on his patent title. The lower court held the Oregon judgment invalid because of deficiencies in the affidavits used to obtain the publication order and to prove publication occurred. The Supreme Court of the United States granted review to consider the validity of the state court judgment and the resulting sheriff's sale.
View caseHeitner sues corporate officers in Delaware over alleged mismanagement of a company incorporated there. The officers own no property in Delaware and reside elsewhere. The Court rules that Delaware cannot assert jurisdiction over the officers' out-of-state interests solely on the basis of the company's local incorporation.
On May 22, 1974, appellee Heitner, a nonresident of Delaware who owned one share of stock in the Greyhound Corporation, filed a shareholder's derivative suit in the Court of Chancery for New Castle County, Delaware. The complaint named as defendants Greyhound Corporation, its wholly owned subsidiary Greyhound Lines, Inc., and twenty-eight present or former officers and directors of one or both corporations. Heitner alleged that the individual defendants had violated their fiduciary duties by causing the corporations to engage in activities that resulted in a private antitrust judgment of over thirteen million dollars and a criminal contempt fine of six hundred thousand dollars, both arising from events in Oregon. The individual defendants resided primarily in Arizona and conducted their business there. Simultaneously with the complaint, Heitner filed a motion for sequestration of the Delaware property of the individual defendants pursuant to Del. Code Ann., Tit. 10, § 366. The Court of Chancery granted the motion the same day and appointed a sequestrator who seized approximately eighty-two thousand shares of Greyhound common stock belonging to nineteen defendants, along with options belonging to two others and certain debentures, warrants, and stock unit credits. The stock certificates were not physically present in Delaware, but Del. Code Ann., Tit. 8, § 169 deemed the situs of ownership of all stock in Delaware corporations to be in the state, allowing the sequestrator to place stop-transfer orders on the corporation's books. The value of the sequestered stock was approximately one point two million dollars. All twenty-eight defendants received notice of the suit by certified mail to their last known addresses and by publication in a New Castle County newspaper. The twenty-one defendants whose property had been seized entered special appearances and moved to quash service of process and vacate the sequestration order. They argued that the ex parte sequestration procedure violated due process and that they lacked sufficient contacts with Delaware to sustain jurisdiction. The Court of Chancery rejected these arguments in a letter opinion, and the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the judgment in Greyhound Corp. v. Heitner, 361 A. 2d 225 (1976). The United States Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction and heard argument on February 22, 1977. The individual defendants whose property was seized became the appellants before the Court. Greyhound Corporation and its subsidiary appeared in the action and moved to dismiss on the ground that the sequestration statute was unconstitutional. The sequestration order remained in effect pending resolution of the constitutional questions presented.
View caseThe widow of a seaman killed aboard a vessel on the high seas brings a wrongful-death action in federal court. The defendant argues that no federal statute creates the claim because the death occurred outside U.S. waters. The Court recognizes a general maritime wrongful-death action to fill the gap left by territorial limits on state and federal statutes.
Edward Moragne was a longshoreman employed by Gulf Florida Terminal Company. On April 23, 1967, he was killed while working aboard the vessel Palmetto State in the Port of Miami, Florida. A beam supporting hatch covers fell on him during the stowage of a cargo of fertilizer. Petitioner, his widow and representative of his estate, brought suit in the Circuit Court for Dade County, Florida, against respondent States Marine Lines, Inc., the vessel owner. She sought damages for wrongful death and for pain and suffering prior to death. The claims rested on theories of both negligence and unseaworthiness. States Marine removed the case to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida on diversity grounds under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1332 and 1441. It filed a third-party complaint against Gulf Florida Terminal Company. The complaint asserted that any negligence or unseaworthiness resulted from Gulf's stevedoring operations. Both defendants moved to dismiss the wrongful-death claim based on unseaworthiness. The District Court dismissed the unseaworthiness portion of the complaint, citing The Tungus v. Skovgaard, and certified the order for interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit certified to the Florida Supreme Court the question whether the Florida wrongful-death statute, Fla. Stat. § 768.01, encompassed unseaworthiness. The state court answered in the negative. On return to the Court of Appeals, that court affirmed the dismissal. Earlier related proceedings in state court had produced an affirmance by the Florida District Court of Appeal, 236 So. 2d 80, and denial of certiorari by the Florida Supreme Court, 239 So. 2d 829. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseCalifornia officials sue several foreign insurers for an alleged conspiracy to fix reinsurance prices affecting U.S. policyholders. The insurers argue that their conduct occurred entirely abroad and therefore lies beyond U.S. antitrust reach. The Court holds that U.S. law may apply when the foreign conduct produces substantial effects inside the United States.
In the late 1970s, ISO, an association of approximately 1,400 domestic property and casualty insurers that serves as the almost exclusive source of support services for CGL insurance in the United States, began revising its 1973 standard CGL policy form. The 1973 form provided occurrence-based coverage for sudden and accidental pollution and did not cap defense costs. Primary insurers including Hartford Fire Insurance Company, Allstate Insurance Company, Aetna Casualty and Surety Company, and CIGNA Corporation sought four changes: a shift to claims-made coverage with a retroactive date, elimination of pollution coverage, and a legal defense cost cap. After ISO proposed 1984 forms that omitted some of these changes, Hartford persuaded General Reinsurance Corporation, the largest American reinsurer, to procure the modifications or derail the program. The Reinsurance Association of America agreed to boycott the 1984 forms unless the changes were added, and domestic and London reinsurers informed ISO they would withhold reinsurance until the forms were altered. ISO then withdrew the 1984 forms and adopted 1986 forms containing a retroactive date and pollution exclusion; it later withdrew support services for the 1973 form. Separate agreements among London reinsurers required primary insurers to switch to claims-made policies and excluded pollution coverage from reinsurance contracts covering North American risks. Nineteen states and many private plaintiffs filed 36 complaints alleging that these actions violated section 1 of the Sherman Act. The cases were consolidated in the Northern District of California. The District Court granted motions to dismiss in 1989, holding the conduct fell within McCarran-Ferguson immunity and applying international comity to the foreign defendants. The Ninth Circuit reversed in 1991. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in 1992.
View caseNigerian plaintiffs sue a foreign corporation in U.S. court for alleged human-rights violations committed entirely on foreign soil. The defendants move to dismiss, contending that the claims fall outside the territorial scope of U.S. law. The Court dismisses the action, applying the presumption against extraterritorial application of the statute.
Petitioners were residents of Ogoniland, an area of 250 square miles located in the Niger delta area of Nigeria and populated by roughly half a million people. In the early 1990s, residents of Ogoniland began protesting the environmental effects of oil exploration and production by Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, Ltd. Nigerian military and police forces attacked Ogoni villages, beating, raping, killing, and arresting residents while destroying or looting property. Petitioners allege that respondents Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, a Dutch holding company, Shell Transport and Trading Company, a British holding company, and their Nigerian subsidiary aided and abetted these acts by providing food, transportation, compensation, and allowing the military to use respondents' property as a staging ground for the attacks. Following the alleged atrocities, petitioners moved to the United States where they have been granted political asylum and now reside as legal residents. They filed suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against the corporate respondents under the Alien Tort Statute, alleging that the corporations aided and abetted the Nigerian government in committing extrajudicial killings, crimes against humanity, torture and cruel treatment, arbitrary arrest and detention, violations of the rights to life, liberty, security, and association, forced exile, and property destruction. The District Court dismissed the claims for extrajudicial killings, violations of the rights to life, liberty, security, and association, forced exile, and property destruction, but denied dismissal of the remaining claims and certified its order for interlocutory appeal. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit dismissed the entire complaint on the ground that the law of nations does not recognize corporate liability. The Supreme Court granted certiorari, directed the parties to file supplemental briefs addressing whether and under what circumstances the Alien Tort Statute allows courts to recognize a cause of action for violations of the law of nations occurring within the territory of a sovereign other than the United States, heard reargument, and affirmed the judgment below.
View caseRule 201(b)(1) permits a court to notice a fact that is generally known within the trial court's territorial jurisdiction. The principle therefore confines judicial notice to matters commonly understood inside the geographic area where the court sits.
The principle creates a presumption against extraterritorial application, but Congress may override the presumption by statute. When foreign conduct produces substantial effects inside the United States, courts may still apply U.S. law.
…to render judgment in personam is grounded on their de facto power over the defendant’s person. Hence his presence within the territorial jurisdiction of a court was prerequisite to its rendition of a judgment personally binding him. Pennoyer v. Neff , 95 U. S. 714, 733. But now that the capias ad respondendum has given way to personal…