Plaintiff Personal Jurisdiction And Venue Transfer, Scott Dodson
Dec 2018
Plaintiff Personal Jurisdiction And Venue Transfer, Scott Dodson
Scott Dodson
Personal jurisdiction usually focuses on the rights of the defendant. That is because a plaintiff implicitly consents to personal jurisdiction in the court where the plaintiff chooses to file. But what if the defendant seeks to transfer venue to a court in a state in which the plaintiff has no contacts and never consented to personal jurisdiction? Lower courts operate on the assumption that, in both ordinary venue-transfer cases under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a) and multidistrict-litigation cases under § 1407(a), personal-jurisdiction concerns for plaintiffs simply do not apply. I contest that assumption. Neither statute expands the statutory authorization of federal-court …
Jurisdiction In The Trump Era, Scott Dodson
Dec 2017
Jurisdiction In The Trump Era, Scott Dodson
Scott Dodson
The next four years—and perhaps beyond—are likely to solidify two recent trends in jurisdictional doctrine favoring defense interests. First, the narrowing of personal jurisdiction has given defendants more opportunities to secure home-state advantage and, as an ancillary matter, hinder plaintiff-friendly aggregation. This narrowing is likely to continue in light of President Trump’s judicial appointments and the disinclination of Congress and rulemakers to expand personal jurisdiction in federal court. Second, recent expansions of diversity jurisdiction allow defendants to invoke favorable federal procedures and interstate venue transfer. Despite longstanding calls to reduce the scope of diversity jurisdiction, Congress is trending in the …
Personal Jurisdiction And Aliens, Scott Dodson, William Dodge
Dec 2017
Personal Jurisdiction And Aliens, Scott Dodson, William Dodge
Scott Dodson
The increasing prevalence of noncitizens in U.S. civil litigation raises a fundamental question for the doctrine of personal jurisdiction: how should the alienage status of a defendant affect personal jurisdiction? This fundamental question comes at a time of increasing Supreme Court focus on personal jurisdiction, in cases like Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court, Daimler AG v. Bauman, and J. McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro. We aim to answer that question by offering a theory of alienage personal jurisdiction. Under this theory, alienage status broadens the geographic range for minimum contacts from a single state to the whole …
Personal Jurisdiction And Aggregation, Scott Dodson
Dec 2017
Personal Jurisdiction And Aggregation, Scott Dodson
Scott Dodson
Aggregation—the ability to join parties or claims in a federal civil lawsuit—has usually been governed by subject-matter jurisdiction, claim and issue preclusion, and the joinder rules. These doctrines have tended to favor aggregation because of its efficiency, consistency, and predictability. Yet aggregation is suddenly under attack from a new threat, one that has little to do with aggregation directly: personal jurisdiction. In this Article, I chronicle how a recent restrictive turn to personal jurisdiction—especially though modern cases narrowing general jurisdiction and last Term’s blockbuster case Bristol-Myers Squibb—threatens the salutary benefits of aggregation across a number of areas, including simple …
Party Subordinance In Federal Litigation, Scott Dodson
Dec 2013
Party Subordinance In Federal Litigation, Scott Dodson
Scott Dodson
American civil litigation in federal courts operates under a presumption of party dominance. Parties choose the lawsuit structure, factual predicates, and legal arguments, and the court accepts these choices. Further, parties enter ubiquitous ex ante agreements that purport to alter the law governing their dispute, along with a chorus of calls for even more party-driven customization of litigation. The assumption behind this model of party dominance is that parties substantially control both the law that will govern their dispute and the judges that oversee it. This Article challenges that assumption by offering a reoriented model of party subordinance. Under my …
