Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

6-20-2011

SSRN Discipline

Economics Research Network; Legal Scholarship Network; Social Insurance Research Network; Entrepreneurship Research & Policy Network; Litigation, Procedure & Dispute Resolution eJournals; Law & Society eJournals; Law & Society: Public Law eJournals; LSN Subject Matter eJournals; Constitutional Law, Jurisprudence & Legal Philosophy eJournals; Humanities Network; Political Science Network; Management Research Network

Abstract

This brief was filed by law professors and legal scholars from across the country with expertise in the areas of civil procedure conflict of laws and transnational litigation The amici curiae have an interest in the proper interpretation of the constitutional restrictions on personal jurisdiction and their effect on civil adjudication Amici believe that the Supreme Court's wellestablished principles confirm that New Jersey courts may permissibly exercise jurisdiction in this case The Court's fractured decision in Asahi Metal Industry Co Ltd v Superior Court 480 US 102 1987 has spurred some uncertainty about whether US courts may constitutionally exercise jurisdiction over foreign manufacturers whose products are sold to US customers and cause injury in the United States Although Asahi divided 44 on whether the foreign manufacturer in that case had established minimum contacts with California both sides of the split endorsed this longstanding consensus a manufacturer establishes minimum contacts with the forum when it purposefully seeks to serve "“ directly or indirectly "“ the market in the forum state and its product thereby causes injury in that state This Court should reaffirm this principle and conclude that New Jersey courts may properly assert jurisdiction over Petitioner a British manufacturer of large metal shearing machines There is no question that Petitioner purposefully sought to serve and profit from the US market for its products by among other things directly engaging a USbased company to be the exclusive distributor for Petitioner's machines in the territory of the United States touting in its literature that its machines comply with American safety standards and having its own highlevel officials attend dozens of US trade shows in an effort to promote the sales of its machines in the United States By taking these purposeful steps to reach the entire US market Petitioner necessarily sought to serve at least indirectly the particular states that comprise the United States The shear machine at issue in this case went directly from the Petitioner to its US distributor to the New Jersey business where Mr Nicastro worked and was injured Given Petitioner's efforts to reach and profit from the US market as a whole sales to customers in particular US states are hardly the kind of random fortuitous or attenuated contacts that cannot be fairly attributed to the PetitionerTo refuse jurisdiction on these facts on the other hand would embrace a logical impossibility that a manufacturer can purposefully target the US market generally without also targeting the states that make up the territory of the United States Moreover it would immunize such a manufacturer from jurisdiction in any US state despite its deliberate efforts to access the entire US market This would create an undesirable and unnecessary disparity between a foreign manufacturer's purposeful conduct directed at the US market and the power of US courts to exercise jurisdiction over claims arising from that conduct

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