United States Supreme Court Backtracks On Recent Trajectory Away From Assertions Of General Jurisdiction In Mallory V. Norfolk Southern

• Published date: 03 July 2023
• Subject Matter: Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Court Procedure, Personal Injury
• Law Firm: Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP
• Author: Mr Charles Anderson, Alyson Hau, Jarred Reed and Jeffrey Bash

Washington, D.C. (June 28, 2023) - On June 27, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a sharply divided opinion that appears to backtrack on the Court's steady trajectory away from assertions of general jurisdiction in recent years, e.g. Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, 564 U.S. 915, 919 (2011), Daimler AG v. Bauman, 134 S. Ct. 746 (2014), BNSF Railway Co. v. Tyrrell, 2017, 137 S. Ct. 1549 (2017). Relying on a case from 1917, Pennsylvania Fire Ins. Co. of Philadelphia v. Gold Issue Mining & Milling Co., 243 U. S. 93 (1917), Justice Gorsuch, writing on behalf of the plurality, (Justices Gorsuch, Thomas, Sotomayor, and Jackson) (Justice Alito concurring) found that Norfolk Southern "consented" to jurisdiction in Mallory via 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. '5301(a)(2)(i),(b) by registering to do business in Pennsylvania. This statute, 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. '5301, specifically permits jurisdiction over a corporation "incorporat[ed] under or qualifi[ed]as a foreign corporation under the laws of this Commonwealth ... for any cause of action that may asserted against him, whether or not arising from acts enumerated in this section."

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