‘Personal jurisdiction’ spreads a source of judicial power

for lack of jurisdiction can be refiled in a more appropriate venue.)

When courts decide questions of personal jurisdiction, they ask whether a company is doing a sufficient quantity of business in a given state that it can be said to be relying on the protection of the laws of that state. If so, it’s only fair that the company should have to submit to the authority of the local courts. Judges employ a wide array of tests (and sub-tests, and sub-sub-tests) to determine the matter, but once you clear away the cobwebs of verbiage, the inquiry is a practical one.

The 10th Circuit held that the mere fact that Continental Motors had a website that could be accessed from Colorado meant nothing. The website could be accessed from anywhere, after all. Nor was it sufficient that the Colorado repair shop subscribed to its repair manuals and bulletins, because Continental hadn’t solicited the shop’s business but simply permitted it to place a website order. The court affirmed the dismissal of the suit.

Any company that expands the territory in which it regularly does business unavoidably expands the range of states in which it can be sued. But, after the Continental Motors case, accepting occasional website orders doesn’t necessarily subject a company to the risk of lawsuits in every place where a customer lives.