SCOTUS Gets (More) Serious about Corporate Personal Jurisdiction: Bristol Myers Squibb v. Superior Court

In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly clarified the limits on states’ personal jurisdiction over foreign corporations. Some would say it has repeatedly restricted personal jurisdiction. Indeed, by now a pattern has emerged: State courts will try a new rationale for extending personal jurisdiction; the Supreme Court will reject it; the States will try yet another variation; and the Supreme Court will reject it as well. That pattern continued in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, 137 S. Ct. 1773 (2017), which the Supreme Court decided the last week of its recently finished term.