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Client Alert
Minimum Contacts Inquiry Cannot Be Minimal: U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Broad Reading of the Effects Test for Personal Jurisdiction
March 04, 2014
BY STEPHEN B. KINNAIRD, CHARLES A. PATRIZIA, IGOR V. TIMOFEYEV, SEAN D. UNGER & DANIELLE C. DOREMUS
The Supreme Court continues to curtail plaintiffs’ freedom to select the forum of litigation. On the heels of its decision last month in Daimler AG v. Bauman restricting general personal jurisdiction, the Court’s decision last week in Walden v. Fiore, No. 12-574, clarifies the constitutional limits of specific jurisdiction. In both contexts, the Court confirmed that even in our increasingly mobile world, plaintiffs cannot presume that the court they choose will have jurisdiction over the defendant.