Page:Mallory v. Norfolk Southern.pdf/47

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, with whom, , and join, dissenting.

For 75 years, we have held that the Due Process Clause does not allow state courts to assert general jurisdiction over foreign defendants merely because they do business in the State. International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U. S. 310, 317 (1945). Pennsylvania nevertheless claims general jurisdiction over all corporations that lawfully do business within its borders. As the Commonwealth’s own courts recognized, that flies in the face of our precedent. See Daimler AG v. Bauman, 571 U. S. 117, 139–140 (2014).

The Court finds a way around this settled rule. All a State must do is compel a corporation to register to conduct business there (as every State does) and enact a law making registration sufficient for suit on any cause (as every State could do). Then, every company doing business in the State is subject to general jurisdiction based on implied “consent”—not contacts. That includes suits, like this one, with no connection whatsoever to the forum.

Such an approach does not formally overrule our traditional contacts-based approach to jurisdiction, but it might as well. By relabeling their long-arm statutes, States may now manufacture “consent” to personal jurisdiction. Because I would not permit state governments to circumvent constitutional limits so easily, I respectfully dissent.