Key Terms for World-Wide Volkswagen

Personal Jurisdiction

A court’s legal authority to bind a particular defendant with its judgment.

In Personam Jurisdiction

Another term for personal jurisdiction; jurisdiction over a person or entity.

Due Process Clause

The Fourteenth Amendment limitation requiring a state’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant to be constitutionally fair.

Minimum Contacts

Sufficient connections between the defendant and the forum state to permit the state to exercise personal jurisdiction.

Traditional Notions of Fair Play and Substantial Justice

The fairness standard used to determine whether exercising personal jurisdiction is constitutionally permissible.

Forum State

The state whose courts are being asked to hear the lawsuit; in World-Wide Volkswagen, Oklahoma.

Nonresident Defendant

A defendant who is not a resident of the forum state.

Purposeful Availment

When a defendant deliberately engages in activities in the forum state and benefits from the privileges and protections of its laws.

Foreseeability

For personal jurisdiction, whether the defendant’s own conduct and connection with the forum make it reasonably foreseeable that the defendant could be sued there; merely foreseeing that a product might travel there is not enough.

Reasonably Anticipate Being Haled into Court

The defendant’s forum contacts are such that being sued in that state should be reasonably predictable.

Unilateral Activity

Conduct by the plaintiff or a third party that creates a connection with the forum; it cannot by itself establish the defendant’s minimum contacts.

Stream of Commerce

The distribution of products into commerce with the expectation that they will be purchased by consumers in particular markets.

Reasonableness / Fairness Factors

Factors including the burden on the defendant, forum state’s interest, plaintiff’s interest in effective relief, interstate judicial efficiency, and shared policy interests of the states.

Interstate Federalism

The principle that states are separate sovereigns and cannot exercise judicial authority beyond constitutional limits.

Long-Arm Statute

A state law defining when its courts may exercise personal jurisdiction over out-of-state defendants.

Special Appearance

An appearance made specifically to challenge personal jurisdiction without submitting to the court’s authority on the merits.

Writ of Prohibition

An order from a higher court directing a lower court or judge to stop exercising authority it allegedly lacks.

Full Faith and Credit

The principle generally requiring states to recognize other states’ judgments; a judgment entered without valid personal jurisdiction is void and need not be recognized.

Chattel

Movable physical property.

Attenuated Contact

A connection with the forum that is too indirect or remote to support personal jurisdiction.

Product Foreseeability

The predictability that a product might physically reach a particular state; by itself, this is insufficient for personal jurisdiction.

Jurisdictional Foreseeability

The predictability, based on the defendant’s own conduct and forum connections, that the defendant could be sued in the forum state.