The U.S. Supreme Court has firmly rejected a California State Court’s attempt to use a “sliding scale” analysis to find specific jurisdiction over the claims of out-of-state litigants against out-of-state defendants, finding that in order for a court to exercise specific jurisdiction over a claim, there must be an “affiliation between the forum and the underlying controversy, principally, [an] activity or an occurrence that takes place in the forum State.” See Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California, No. 16-466, decided June 19, 2017. This decision should dissuade local courts from creating attenuated connections to create jurisdiction when the underlying tort didn’t occur in the forum state, in violation of a defendant’s right to due process.
Read the decision here. (PDF opens in a new window.)