Civil Procedure Commons^™

Rule 4 And Personal Jurisdiction, Scott Dodson

Notre Dame Law Review

State-court personal jurisdiction is regulated intensely by the Fourteenth Amend-ment’s Due Process Clause, which the Court has famously used to tie state-court personal jurisdiction to state borders. Although the Fourteenth Amendment doesn’t apply to federal courts, the prevailing wisdom is that federal courts nevertheless are largely confined to the same personal-jurisdiction limits as state courts because of Rule 4(k), which provides that service “establishes personal jurisdiction” in federal court only upon specified conditions, including when the state courts would have personal jurisdiction. Some commentators have further argued that Rule 4(k) sets a limit on federal-court personal jurisdiction independent of service …