What You'll Learn

  • General versus specific jurisdiction
  • Individuals and domicile
  • Corporations and the at-home rule
  • Exceptional cases
  • Consent after Mallory
  • Common exam traps

Educational information only; not legal advice. This article is a general study aid and should be checked against current authority and course materials.

General personal jurisdiction allows a court to hear any claim against the defendant, even when the claim has nothing to do with the forum. Because that power is broad, the modern doctrine is narrow: the defendant must ordinarily be at home in the state.

1. General Jurisdiction Is All-Purpose

General Jurisdiction Specific Jurisdiction

Permits all claims against the defendant. Permits only claims arising out of or relating to forum contacts.

Focuses on whether the defendant is at home. Focuses on purposeful contacts, relatedness, and fairness.

Claim need not be connected to forum activity. Claim-forum affiliation is essential.

The distinction prevents a corporation from being sued everywhere it does substantial business on claims arising anywhere in the world.

2. Individuals: Domicile

An individual is subject to general jurisdiction in the state of domicile. Domicile generally requires physical presence plus intent to remain indefinitely. A person may have multiple residences but only one domicile at a time.

Exam Tip

A student rents an apartment near school for nine months but intends to return permanently to another state after graduation. The school-state residence does not necessarily become the student’s domicile.

3. Corporations: The Paradigm Forums

For a corporation, the paradigm at-home forums are:

the state of incorporation; and the state of the corporation’s principal place of business, ordinarily its nerve center.

Goodyear introduced the modern at-home formulation. Daimler AG v. Bauman made clear that continuous and systematic business is not, by itself, enough. A corporation that sells heavily, employs thousands, or operates facilities in a state is not automatically at home there.

Key Takeaway

A corporation is ordinarily at home in its place of incorporation and principal place of business. General jurisdiction elsewhere is exceptional, not a routine consequence of doing substantial business.

4. Why “Lots of Business” Is Not the Test

In Daimler, claims concerning conduct in Argentina were brought against a German corporation in California. Even assuming substantial California contacts through a subsidiary, the Court rejected a theory that would make a corporation subject to all-purpose jurisdiction in every state where its sales were sizable.

BNSF Railway Co. v. Tyrrell reinforced the point. The railroad had extensive Montana operations, but it was neither incorporated nor headquartered there, and the claims were unrelated to Montana. Large operations did not make Montana an at-home forum.

5. The Exceptional Case

Perkins v. Benguet Consolidated Mining Co. remains the leading example. During wartime, the corporation’s president directed the company’s activities from Ohio while its ordinary overseas operations were halted. Ohio functioned as a temporary principal place of business.

The exceptional-case inquiry is not whether the corporation is important to the forum’s economy. It is whether the corporation’s activities make the forum comparable to a true home.

Usually Enough

Incorporation; principal place of business; a rare temporary headquarters that effectively replaces the ordinary home.

Usually Not Enough

High sales; many employees; stores; tracks; purchases; training; a distributor; or a subsidiary without an at-home relationship.

Consent-based jurisdiction is analytically distinct from the at-home inquiry. A defendant may consent through a valid forum-selection clause, litigation conduct, or another recognized mechanism. In Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co., the Supreme Court held that Pennsylvania’s registration-based consent scheme did not violate the corporation’s due-process rights under the precedent controlling that question.

Mallory should not be rewritten as “doing business equals general jurisdiction.” The decision concerned consent under a particular statutory scheme, not a return to the pre-Daimler substantial-business test. Separate constitutional questions were not fully resolved by the controlling due-process analysis.

Common Mistake

Do not list tag service, consent, and “at home” as if they are identical. They can each support broad jurisdiction, but they rest on different doctrinal bases and require different facts.

7. Exam Checklist

  1. Is the defendant an individual, corporation, or unincorporated entity? 2. For an individual, identify domicile. 3. For a corporation, identify incorporation and principal place of business. 4. Ask whether this is the rare Perkins-type exceptional case. 5. Analyze consent separately. 6. If general jurisdiction fails, move to specific jurisdiction claim by claim.

Primary Authorities

  • Perkins v. Benguet Consolidated Mining Co., 342 U.S. 437 (1952).

  • Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, 564 U.S. 915 (2011).

  • Daimler AG v. Bauman, 571 U.S. 117 (2014).

  • BNSF Railway Co. v. Tyrrell, 581 U.S. 402 (2017).

  • Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co., 600 U.S. 122 (2023).

Exam-ready conclusion

General jurisdiction is powerful because it is claim-independent. The modern at-home rule keeps that power concentrated in a small number of predictable forums, while consent remains a distinct route that must be analyzed on its own terms.