Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court: Reproaching the Sliding Scale Approach for the Fixable Fault of Sliding Too Far

John V. Feliccia

In Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, the Supreme Court of the United States considered whether California courts appropriately exercised personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant. The minimum contacts doctrine permits a court to assert personal jurisdiction over nonresident defendants with respect to claims “aris[ing] out of” or “related to” the defendant’s activities in the forum state. When a court exercises personal jurisdiction so grounded, it is said to be exercising “specific jurisdiction.” The California courts asserted specific jurisdiction over claims brought by nonresident plaintiffs for out-of-state injuries arising out of the defendant’s conduct that occurred entirely outside California. The nonresidents’ claims were allegedly connected with California because the defendant engaged in a nationwide course of similar conduct, giving rise to claims brought by California residents that were materially identical to the claims brought by the nonresidents. The Supreme Court held that California exercise of specific jurisdiction over the nonresidents’ claims violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because a relationship between the defendant and a third party is not enough to connect the nonresidents’ claims with the forum. A nonresident’s claim remains unconnected with a forum despite the fact that forum residents bring identical claims arising out of the defendant’s substantially similar conduct. Even when a defendant’s highly coordinated and uniform course of conduct generates both forum contacts with third parties and the out-of-state conduct that gives rise to the nonresident plaintiff’s claim, a connection between the claim and the forum is wanting.

The Court reached the correct conclusion because the objectives of due process are undermined when a court asserts specific jurisdiction over claims so tenuously connected with the forum. Allowing the relatedness requirement to be satisfied by a similarity relationship exploits an expansive, untenable understanding of “relate to” that would upset the “orderly administration of the laws.” Such an interpretation would grant states the authority to adjudicate claims that fail to implicate their sovereign interest. A defendant’s course of conduct that generates separate acts likewise fails to implicate a sovereign interest over the whole when only some of those acts occur within the forum state’s borders. If these kinds of relationships were allowed to satisfy the “arise out of or relate to” requirement, the minimum contacts doctrine would bring about wildly unpredictable litigation for defendants operating on a national scale.