Since the United States Supreme Court’s decisions in Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, 564 U.S. 915 (2011) and Daimler AG v. Bauman, 134 S. Ct. 746 (2014)—and particularly in light of the Court’s more recent decisions in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, 137 S. Ct. 1773 (2017) and BNSF Ry. Co. v. Tyrrell, 137 S. Ct. 1549 (2017)—courts across the country have applied a more exacting standard for assessing whether defendants can be subject to general personal jurisdiction in a particular forum. Under this standard, a plaintiff must demonstrate that the defendant’s contacts with the forum are so continuous and systematic as to render it “essentially at home” there. In most instances, a company is “essentially at home” only in the state where it is incorporated and the state where it operates its principal place of business. This has been a largely positive result for companies in the retail product industry that may have strategic incentive to avoid becoming subject to “all purpose” general personal jurisdiction in each state in which their products are sold.
Trial courts in Pennsylvania have presented an exception to this trend. Specifically, even after Goodyear and Daimler, Pennsylvania courts have relied on 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5301 to conclude that any out-of-state company that registers to do business in Pennsylvania consents to the exercise of general personal jurisdiction there.
Although other courts across the country have rejected similar consent-based theories (e.g., Aspen Am. Ins. Co. v. Interstate Warehousing, Inc., 2017 IL 121281 and State ex rel. Norfolk S. Ry. Co. v. Dolan, 512 S.W.3d 41, 52–53 Mo. 2017), Pennsylvania trial courts have held that Section 5301 is unique in its operation. Specifically, because the statute expressly provides that registration to do business “shall constitute a sufficient basis” for the exercise of general personal jurisdiction, trial courts have held that the statute adequately notifies defendants of the consequences of registering and thus provides a constitutional basis for general personal jurisdiction through express consent.
Notwithstanding these decisions, Section 5301 is extremely difficult to reconcile with Supreme Court precedent. For example, if all states adopted statutes similar to Section 5301, Goodyear and Daimler—decisions enforcing defendants’ constitutional rights to due process—would be rendered largely irrelevant. To date, however, no post-Daimler opinion analyzing...
