NOTICE: This opinion is subject to
formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the
United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter
of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington,
D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in
order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print
goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 11–965
_________________
DAIMLER AG, PETITIONER v. BARBARABAUMAN et
al.
on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the ninth circuit
[January 14, 2014]
Justice Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the
authority of a court in the United States to entertain a claim
brought by foreign plaintiffs against a foreign defendant based on
events occurring entirely outside the United States. The litigation
commenced in 2004, when twenty-two Argentinian residents[
1] filed a complaint in the United
States District Court for the Northern District of California
against DaimlerChrysler Aktiengesellschaft (Daimler),[
2] a German public stock company,
headquartered in Stuttgart, that manufactures Mercedes-Benz
vehicles in Germany. The complaint alleged that during Argentina’s
1976–1983 “Dirty War,” Daimler’s Argentinian subsidiary,
Mercedes-Benz Argentina (MB Argentina) collaborated with state
security forces to kidnap, detain, torture, and kill certain MB
Argentina workers, among them, plaintiffs or persons closely
related to plaintiffs. Damages for the alleged human-rights
violations were sought from Daimler under the laws of the United
States, California, and Argentina. Jurisdiction over the lawsuit
was predicated on the California contacts of Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC
(MBUSA),a subsidiary of Daimler incorporated in Delaware withits
principal place of business in New Jersey. MBUSA distributes
Daimler-manufactured vehicles to independ-ent dealerships
throughout the United States, including California.
The question presented
is whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
precludes the District Court from exercising jurisdiction over
Daimler in this case, given the absence of any California
connectionto the atrocities, perpetrators, or victims described in
the complaint. Plaintiffs invoked the court’s general or
all-purpose jurisdiction. California, they urge, is a place where
Daimler may be sued on any and all claims against it, wherever in
the world the claims may arise. For example, as plaintiffs’ counsel
affirmed, under the proffered jurisdictional theory, if a
Daimler-manufactured vehicle overturned in Poland, injuring a
Polish driver and passenger, the injured parties could maintain a
design defect suit in California. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 28–29.
Exercises of personal jurisdiction so exorbitant, we hold, are
barred by due process constraints on the assertion of adjudicatory
authority.
In Goodyear Dunlop
Tires Operations, S. A. v. Brown, 564 U. S. ___ (2011),
we addressed the distinction between general or all-purpose
jurisdiction, and specific or conduct-linked jurisdiction. As to
the former, we held that a court may assert jurisdiction over a
foreign corporation “to hear any and all claims against [it]” only
when the corporation’s affiliations with the State in which suit is
brought areso constant and pervasive “as to render [it] essentially
at home in the forum State.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 2).
Instructed by Goodyear, we conclude Daimler is not “at home” in
California, and cannot be sued there for injuries plaintiffs
attribute to MB Argentina’s conduct in Argentina.
I
In 2004, plaintiffs
(respondents here) filed suit in the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California, alleging that MB Argentina
collaborated with Argentinian state security forces to kidnap,
detain, torture, and kill plaintiffs and their relatives during the
military dictatorship in place there from 1976 through 1983, a
period known as Argentina’s “Dirty War.” Based on those
allegations, plaintiffs asserted claims under the Alien Tort
Statute, 28 U. S. C. §1350, and the Torture Victim
Protection Act of 1991, 106Stat. 73, note following 28
U. S. C. §1350, as well as claims for wrongful death and
intentional infliction of emotional distress under the laws of
California and Argentina. The incidents recounted in the complaint
center on MB Argentina’s plant in Gonzalez Catan, Argentina; no
part of MB Argentina’s alleged col-laboration with Argentinian
authorities took place in Cali-fornia or anywhere else in the
United States.
Plaintiffs’ operative
complaint names only one corporate defendant: Daimler, the
petitioner here. Plaintiffs seek to hold Daimler vicariously liable
for MB Argentina’s alleged malfeasance. Daimler is a German
Aktiengesellschaft (public stock company) that manufactures
Mercedes-Benz vehicles in Germany and has its headquarters in
Stuttgart. At times relevant to this case, MB Argentina was a
subsidiary wholly owned by Daimler’s predecessor in interest.
Daimler moved to
dismiss the action for want of personal jurisdiction. Opposing the
motion, plaintiffs submitted declarations and exhibits purporting
to demonstrate the presence of Daimler itself in California.
Alternatively, plaintiffs maintained that jurisdiction over Daimler
could be founded on the California contacts of MBUSA, a distinct
corporate entity that, according to plaintiffs, should be treated
as Daimler’s agent for jurisdictional purposes.
MBUSA, an indirect
subsidiary of Daimler, is a Delaware limited liability
corporation.[
3] MBUSA serves as
Daimler’s exclusive importer and distributor in the United States,
purchasing Mercedes-Benz automobiles from Daimler in Germany, then
importing those vehicles, and ultimately distributing them to
independent dealerships located throughout the Nation. Although
MBUSA’s principal place of business is in New Jersey, MBUSA has
multiple California-based facilities, including a regional office
in Costa Mesa, a Vehicle Preparation Center in Carson, and a
Classic Center in Irvine. According to the record developed below,
MBUSA is the largest supplier of luxury vehicles to the California
market. In particular, over 10% of all sales of new vehicles in the
United States take place in California, and MBUSA’s California
sales account for 2.4% of Daimler’s worldwide sales.
The relationship
between Daimler and MBUSA is delineated in a General Distributor
Agreement, which sets forth requirements for MBUSA’s distribution
of Mercedes-Benz vehicles in the United States. That
agreementestablished MBUSA as an “independent contracto[r]”that
“buy[s] and sell[s] [vehicles] . . . as an independent
business for [its] own account.” App. 179a. The agreement “does not
make [MBUSA] . . . a general or special agent, partner,
joint venturer or employee of DAIMLERCHRYSLER or any
DaimlerChrysler Group Company”; MBUSA “ha[s] no authority to make
binding obligations for or act on behalf of DAIMLERCHRYSLER or any
DaimlerChrysler Group Company.” Ibid.
After allowing
jurisdictional discovery on plaintiffs’ agency allegations, the
District Court granted Daimler’s motion to dismiss. Daimler’s own
affiliations with California, the court first determined, were
insufficient to support the exercise of all-purpose jurisdiction
over the corporation. Bauman v. DaimlerChrysler AG, No. C–04–00194
RMW (ND Cal., Nov. 22, 2005), App. to Pet. for Cert. 111a–112a,
2005 WL 3157472, *9–*10. Next, the court declined to attribute
MBUSA’s California contacts to Daimler on an agency theory,
concluding that plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that MBUSA acted
as Daimler’s agent. Id., at 117a, 133a, 2005 WL 3157472, *12, *19;
Bauman v. DaimlerChrysler AG, No. C–04–00194 RMW (ND Cal., Feb. 12,
2007), App. to Pet. for Cert. 83a–85a, 2007 WL 486389, *2.
The Ninth Circuit at
first affirmed the District Court’s judgment. Addressing solely the
question of agency, the Court of Appeals held that plaintiffs had
not shown the existence of an agency relationship of the kind that
might warrant attribution of MBUSA’s contacts to Daimler. Bauman v.
DaimlerChrysler Corp., 579 F. 3d 1088, 1096–1097 (2009). Judge
Reinhardt dissented. In his view, the agency test was satisfied and
considerations of “reason-ableness” did not bar the exercise of
jurisdiction. Id., at 1098–1106. Granting plaintiffs’ petition for
rehearing, the panel withdrew its initial opinion and replaced it
with one authored by Judge Reinhardt, which elaborated on reasoning
he initially expressed in dissent. Bauman v. Daimler-Chrysler
Corp., 644 F. 3d 909 (CA9 2011).
Daimler petitioned for
rehearing and rehearing en banc, urging that the exercise of
personal jurisdiction over Daimler could not be reconciled with
this Court’s decision in Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations,
S. A. v. Brown, 564 U. S. ___ (2011). Over the dissent of
eight judges, the Ninth Circuit denied Daimler’s petition. See
Bauman v. DaimlerChrysler Corp., 676 F. 3d 774 (2011)
(O’Scannlain, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc).
We granted certiorari
to decide whether, consistent with the Due Process Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment, Daimler is amenable to suit in California
courts for claims involving only foreign plaintiffs and conduct
occurring entirely abroad. 569 U. S. ___ (2013).
II
Federal courts
ordinarily follow state law in determining the bounds of their
jurisdiction over persons. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 4(k)(1)(A)
(service of process is effective to establish personal jurisdiction
over a defendant “who is subject to the jurisdiction of a court of
general jurisdiction in the state where the district court is
located”). Under California’s long-arm statute, California state
courts may exercise personal jurisdiction “on any basis not
inconsistent with the Constitution of this state or of the United
States.” Cal. Civ. Proc. Code Ann. §410.10 (West 2004).
California’s long-arm statute allows the exercise of personal
jurisdiction to the full extent permissible under the U. S.
Constitution. We therefore inquire whether the Ninth Circuit’s
holding comports with the limits imposed by federal due process.
See, e.g., Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U. S. 462, 464
(1985) .
III
In Pennoyer v. Neff,
95 U. S. 714 (1878) , decided shortly after the enactment of
the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court held that a tribunal’s
jurisdiction over persons reaches no farther than the geographic
bounds of the forum. See id., at 720 (“The authority of every
tribunal is necessarily restricted by the territorial limits of the
State in which it is established.”). See also Shaffer v. Heitner,
433 U. S. 186, 197 (1977) (Under Pennoyer, “any attempt
‘directly’ to assert extraterritorial jurisdiction over persons or
property would offend sister States and exceed the inherent limits
of the State’s power.”). In time, however, that strict territorial
approach yielded to a less rigid understanding, spurred by “changes
in the technology of transportation and communication, and the
tremendous growth of interstate business activity.” Burnham v.
Superior Court of Cal., County of Marin, 495 U. S. 604, 617
(1990) (opinion of Scalia, J.).
“The canonical opinion
in this area remains International Shoe [Co. v. Washington], 326
U. S. 310 [(1945)], in which we held that a State may
authorize its courts to exercise personal jurisdiction over an
out-of-state defendant if the defendant has ‘certain minimum
contacts with [the State] such that the maintenance of the suit
does not offend “traditional notions of fair play and substantial
justice.” ’ ” Goodyear, 564 U. S., at ___ (slip op.,
at 6) (quoting International Shoe, 326 U. S., at 316).
Following International Shoe, “the relationship among the
defendant, the forum, and the litigation, rather than the mutually
exclusive sovereignty of the States on which the rules of Pennoyer
rest, became the central concern of the inquiry into personal
jurisdiction.” Shaffer, 433 U. S., at 204.
International Shoe’s
conception of “fair play and substantial justice” presaged the
development of two categories of personal jurisdiction. The first
category is represented by International Shoe itself, a case in
which the in-state activities of the corporate defendant “ha[d] not
only been continuous and systematic, but also g[a]ve rise to the
liabilities sued on.” 326 U. S., at 317.[
4] International Shoe recognized, as well, that
“the commission of some single or occasional acts of the corporate
agent in a state” may sometimes be enough to subject the
corporation to jurisdiction in that State’s tribunals with respect
to suits relating to that in-state activity. Id., at 318.
Adjudicatory author-ity of this order, in which the suit “aris[es]
out of orrelate[s] to the defendant’s contacts with the forum,”
Heli-copteros Nacionales de Colombia, S. A. v. Hall, 466
U. S. 408 , n. 8 (1984), is today called “specific
jurisdiction.” See Goodyear, 564 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at
7) (citing von Mehren & Trautman, Jurisdiction to Adjudicate: A
Suggested Analysis, 79 Harv. L. Rev. 1121, 1144–1163 (1966)
(hereinafter von Mehren & Trautman)).
International Shoe
distinguished between, on the one hand, exercises of specific
jurisdiction, as just described, and on the other, situations where
a foreign corporation’s “continuous corporate operations within a
state [are] so substantial and of such a nature as to justify suit
against it on causes of action arising from dealings entirely
distinct from those activities.” 326 U. S., at 318. As we have
since explained, “[a] court may assert general jurisdiction over
foreign (sister-state or foreign-country) corporations to hear any
and all claims against them when their affiliations with the State
are so ‘continuous and systematic’ as to render them essentially at
home in the forum State.” Goodyear, 564 U. S., at ___ (slip
op., at 2); see id., at ___ (slip op., at 7); Helicopteros, 466
U. S., at 414, n. 9.[
5]
Since International
Shoe, “specific jurisdiction has become the centerpiece of modern
jurisdiction theory, while general jurisdiction [has played] a
reduced role.” Goodyear, 564 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 8)
(quoting Twitchell, The Myth of General Jurisdiction, 101 Harv.
L. Rev. 610, 628 (1988)). International Shoe’s momentous
departure from Pennoyer’s rigidly territorial focus, we have noted,
unleashed a rapid expansion of tribunals’ ability to hear claims
against out-of-state defendants when the episode-in-suit occurred
in the forum or the defendant purposefully availed itself of the
forum.[
6] Our subsequent
decisions have continued to bear out the prediction that “specific
jurisdiction will come into sharper relief and form a considerably
more significant part of the scene.” von Mehren & Trautman
1164.[
7]
Our post-International
Shoe opinions on general jurisdiction, by comparison, are few.
“[The Court’s] 1952 decision in Perkins v. Benguet Consol. Mining
Co. remains the textbook case of general jurisdiction appropriately
exercised over a foreign corporation that has not consented to suit
in the forum.” Goodyear, 564 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 11)
(internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). The defendant in
Perkins, Benguet, was a company incorporated under the laws of the
Philippines, where it operated gold and silver mines. Benguet
ceased its mining operations during the Japanese occupation of the
Philippines in World War II; its president moved to Ohio, where he
kept an office, maintained the company’s files, and oversaw the
company’s activities. Perkins v. Benguet Consol. Mining Co., 342
U. S. 437, 448 (1952) . The plaintiff, an Ohio resident, sued
Benguet on a claim that neither arose in Ohio nor related to the
corporation’s activities in that State. We held that the Ohio
courts could exercise general jurisdiction over Benguet without
offending due process. Ibid. That was so, we later noted, because
“Ohio was the corporation’s principal, if temporary, place of
business.” Keeton v. Hustler Magazine, Inc., 465 U. S. 770 ,
n. 11 (1984).[
8]
The next case on point,
Helicopteros, 466 U. S. 408 , arose from a helicopter crash in
Peru. Four U. S. citizens perished in that accident; their
survivors and representatives brought suit in Texas state court
against the helicopter’s owner and operator, a Colombian
corporation. That company’s contacts with Texas were confined to
“sending its chief executive officer to Houston for a
contract-negotiation session; accepting into its New York bank
account checks drawn on a Houston bank; purchasing helicopters,
equipment, and training services from [a Texas-based helicopter
company] for substantial sums; and sending personnel to [Texas] for
training.” Id., at 416. Notably, those contacts bore no apparent
relationship to the accident that gave rise to the suit. We held
that the company’s Texas connections did not resemble the
“continuous and systematic general business contacts
. . . found to exist in Perkins.” Ibid. “[M]ere
purchases, even if occurring at regular intervals,” we clarified,
“are not enough to warrant a State’s assertion of in personam
jurisdiction over a nonresident corporation in a cause of action
not related to those purchase transactions.” Id., at 418.
Most recently, in
Goodyear, we answered the question: “Are foreign subsidiaries of a
United States parent corporation amenable to suit in state court on
claims unrelated to any activity of the subsidiaries in the forum
State? ” 564 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 1). That case
arose from a bus accident outside Paris that killed two boys from
North Carolina. The boys’ parents brought a wrongful-death suit in
North Carolina state court alleging that the bus’s tire was
defectively manufactured. The complaint named as defendants not
only The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company (Goodyear), an Ohio
corporation, but also Goodyear’s Turkish, French, and Luxembourgian
subsidiaries. Those foreign subsidiaries, which manufactured tires
for sale in Europe and Asia, lacked any affiliation with North
Caro-lina. A small percentage of tires manufactured by the foreign
subsidiaries were distributed in North Carolina, however, and on
that ground, the North Carolina Court of Appeals held the
subsidiaries amenable to the general jurisdiction of North Carolina
courts.
We reversed, observing
that the North Carolina court’s analysis “elided the essential
difference between case-specific and all-purpose (general)
jurisdiction.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 10). Although the
placement of a product into the stream of commerce “may bolster an
affiliation germane to specific jurisdiction,” we explained, such
contacts “do not warrant a determination that, based on those ties,
the forum has general jurisdiction over a defendant.” Id., at ___
(slip op., at 10–11). As International Shoe itself teaches, a
corporation’s “continuous activity of some sorts within a state is
not enough to support the demand that the corporation be amenable
to suits unrelated to that activity.” 326 U. S., at 318.
Because Goodyear’s foreign subsidiaries were “in no sense at home
in North Carolina,” we held, those subsidiaries could not be
required to submit to the general jurisdiction of that State’s
courts. 564 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 13). See also J.
McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro, 564 U. S. ___, ___
(2011) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 7) (noting
unanimous agreement that a foreign manufacturer, which engaged an
independent U. S.-based distributor to sell its machines
throughout the United States, could not be exposed to all-purpose
jurisdiction in New Jersey courts based on those contacts).
As is evident from
Perkins, Helicopteros, and Goodyear, general and specific
jurisdiction have followed markedly different trajectories
post-International Shoe. Specific jurisdiction has been cut loose
from Pennoyer’s sway, but we have declined to stretch general
jurisdiction beyond limits traditionally recognized.[
9] As this Court has increasingly trained on
the “relationship among the defendant, the forum, and the
litigation,” Shaffer, 433 U. S., at 204, i.e., specific
jurisdiction,[
10] general
jurisdiction has cometo occupy a less dominant place in the
contemporary scheme.[
11]
IV
With this background,
we turn directly to the question whether Daimler’s affiliations
with California are sufficient to subject it to the general
(all-purpose) personal jurisdiction of that State’s courts. In the
proceedings below, the parties agreed on, or failed to contest,
certain points we now take as given. Plaintiffs have never
attempted to fit this case into the specific jurisdiction category.
Nor did plaintiffs challenge on appeal the District Court’s holding
that Daimler’s own contacts with California were, by themselves,
too sporadic to justify the exercise of general jurisdiction. While
plaintiffs ultimately persuaded the Ninth Circuit to impute MBUSA’s
California contacts to Daimler on an agency theory, at no point
have they maintained that MBUSA is an alter ego of Daimler.
Daimler, on the other
hand, failed to object below to plaintiffs’ assertion that the
California courts could exercise all-purpose jurisdiction over
MBUSA.[
12] But see Brief for
Petitioner 23, n. 4 (suggestion that in light of Goodyear,
MBUSA may not be amenable to general jurisdiction in California);
Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 16, n. 5 (hereinafter
U. S. Brief) (same). We will assume then, for purposes of this
decision only, that MBUSA qualifies as at home in California.
A
In sustaining the
exercise of general jurisdiction over Daimler, the Ninth Circuit
relied on an agency theory, determining that MBUSA acted as
Daimler’s agent for jurisdictional purposes and then attributing
MBUSA’s California contacts to Daimler. The Ninth Circuit’s agency
analysis derived from Circuit precedent consideringprincipally
whether the subsidiary “performs services that are sufficiently
important to the foreign corporation that if it did not have a
representative to perform them, the corporation’s own officials
would undertake to perform substantially similar services.” 644
F. 3d, at 920 (quoting Doe v. Unocal Corp., 248 F. 3d
915, 928 (CA9 2001); emphasis deleted).
This Court has not yet
addressed whether a foreign corporation may be subjected to a
court’s general jurisdiction based on the contacts of its in-state
subsidiary. Daimler argues, and several Courts of Appeals have
held, that a subsidiary’s jurisdictional contacts can be imputed to
its parent only when the former is so dominated by the latter as to
be its alter ego. The Ninth Circuit adopted a less rigorous test
based on what it described as an “agency” relationship. Agencies,
we note, come in many sizes and shapes: “One may be an agent for
some business purposes and not others so that the fact that one may
be an agent for one purpose does not make him or her an agent for
every purpose.” 2A C. J. S., Agency §43, p. 367 (2013) (footnote
omitted).[
13] A subsidiary,
for example, might be its parent’s agent for claims arising in the
place where the subsidiary operates, yet not its agent regarding
claims arising elsewhere. The Court of Appeals did not advert to
that prospect. But we need not pass judgment on invocation of an
agency theory in the context of general jurisdiction, for in no
event can the appeals court’s analysis be sustained.
The Ninth Circuit’s
agency finding rested primarily on its observation that MBUSA’s
services were “important” to Daimler, as gauged by Daimler’s
hypothetical readiness to perform those services itself if MBUSA
did not exist. Formulated this way, the inquiry into importance
stacks the deck, for it will always yield a pro-jurisdiction
answer: “Anything a corporation does through an independent
contractor, subsidiary, or distributor is presumably something that
the corporation would do ‘by other means’ if the independent
contractor, subsidiary, or distributor did not exist.” 676
F. 3d, at 777 (O’Scannlain, J., dissenting from denial of
rehearing en banc).[
14] The
Ninth Circuit’s agency theory thus appears to subject foreign
corporations to general jurisdiction whenever they have an in-state
subsidiary or affiliate, an outcome that would sweep beyond even
the “sprawling view of general jurisdiction” we rejected in
Goodyear. 564 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 12).[
15]
B
Even if we were to
assume that MBUSA is at home in California, and further to assume
MBUSA’s contacts are imputable to Daimler, there would still be no
basis to subject Daimler to general jurisdiction in California, for
Daimler’s slim contacts with the State hardly render it at home
there.[
16]
Goodyear made clear
that only a limited set of affiliations with a forum will render a
defendant amenable to all-purpose jurisdiction there. “For an
individual, the paradigm forum for the exercise of general
jurisdiction is the individual’s domicile; for a corporation, it is
an equivalent place, one in which the corporation is fairly
regarded as at home.” 564 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 7)
(citing Brilmayer et al., A General Look at General
Jurisdiction, 66 Texas L. Rev. 721, 728 (1988)). With respect
to a corporation, the place of incorporation and principal place of
business are “paradig[m] . . . bases for general
jurisdiction.” Id., at 735. See also Twitchell, 101 Harv.
L. Rev., at 633. Those affiliations have the virtue of being
unique—that is, each ordinarily indicates only one place—as well as
easily ascertainable. Cf. Hertz Corp. v. Friend, 559 U. S. 77,
94 (2010) (“Simple jurisdictional rules . . . promote
greater predictability.”). These bases afford plaintiffs recourse
to at least one clear and certain forum in which a corporate
defendant may be sued on any and all claims.
Goodyear did not hold
that a corporation may be subject to general jurisdiction only in a
forum where it is incor-porated or has its principal place of
business; it simply typed those places paradigm all-purpose forums.
Plaintiffs would have us look beyond the exemplar bases Goodyear
identified, and approve the exercise of general jurisdiction in
every State in which a corporation “engages in a substantial,
continuous, and systematic course of business.” Brief for
Respondents 16–17, and nn. 7–8. That formulation, we hold, is
unacceptably grasping.
As noted, see supra, at
7–8, the words “continuous and systematic” were used in
International Shoe to describe instances in which the exercise of
specific jurisdiction would be appropriate. See 326 U. S., at
317 (jurisdiction can be asserted where a corporation’s in-state
activities are not only “continuous and systematic, but also give
rise to the liabilities sued on”).[
17] Turning to all-purpose jurisdiction, in contrast,
International Shoe speaks of “instances in which the continuous
corporate operations within a state [are] so substantial and of
such a nature as to justify suit . . . on causes of
action arising from dealings en-tirely distinct from those
activities.” Id., at 318 (emphasis added). See also Twitchell, Why
We Keep Doing Business With Doing-Business Jurisdiction, 2001 U.
Chi. Legal Forum 171, 184 (International Shoe “is clearly not
saying that dispute-blind jurisdiction exists whenever ‘continuous
and systematic’ contacts are found.”).[
18] Accordingly, the inquiry under Goodyear is not
whether a foreign corporation’s in-forum contacts can be said to be
in some sense “continuous and systematic,” it is whether that
corporation’s “affiliations with the State are so ‘continuous and
systematic’ as to render [it] essentially at home in the forum
State.” 564 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 2).[
19]
Here, neither Daimler
nor MBUSA is incorporated in California, nor does either entity
have its principal place of business there. If Daimler’s California
activities sufficed to allow adjudication of this Argentina-rooted
case in California, the same global reach would presumably be
available in every other State in which MBUSA’s sales are sizable.
Such exorbitant exercises of all-purpose jurisdiction would
scarcely permit out-of-state defendants “to structure their primary
conduct with some minimum assurance as to where that conduct will
and will not render them liable to suit.” Burger King Corp., 471
U. S., at 472 (internal quotation marks omitted).
It was therefore error
for the Ninth Circuit to conclude that Daimler, even with MBUSA’s
contacts attributed to it, was at home in California, and hence
subject to suit there on claims by foreign plaintiffs having
nothing to do with anything that occurred or had its principal
impact in California.[
20]
C
Finally, the
transnational context of this dispute bears attention. The Court of
Appeals emphasized, as supportive of the exercise of general
jurisdiction, plaintiffs’ assertion of claims under the Alien Tort
Statute (ATS), 28 U. S. C. §1350, and the Torture Victim
Protection Act of 1991 (TVPA), 106Stat. 73, note following 28
U. S. C. §1350. See 644 F. 3d, at 927 (“American
federal courts, be they in California or any other state, have a
strong interest in adjudicating and redressing international human
rights abuses.”). Recent decisions of this Court, however, have
rendered plaintiffs’ ATS and TVPA claims infirm. See Kiobel v.
Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 569 U. S. ___, ___ (2013) (slip
op., at 14) (presumption against extra-territorial application
controls claims under the ATS); Mohamad v. Palestinian Authority,
566 U. S. ___, ___ (2012) (slip op., at 1) (only natural
persons are subject to liability under the TVPA).
The Ninth Circuit,
moreover, paid little heed to the risks to international comity its
expansive view of general jurisdiction posed. Other nations do not
share the uninhibited approach to personal jurisdiction advanced by
the Court of Appeals in this case. In the European Union, for
example, a corporation may generally be sued in the nation in which
it is “domiciled,” a term defined to refer only to the location of
the corporation’s “statutory seat,” “central administration,” or
“principal place of business.” European Parliament and Council Reg.
1215/2012, Arts. 4(1), and 63(1), 2012 O. J. (L. 351) 7, 18. See
also id., Art. 7(5), 2012 O. J. 7 (as to “a dispute arising out of
the operations of a branch, agency or other establishment,” a
corporation may be sued “in the courts for the place where the
branch, agency or other establishment is situated” (emphasis
added)). The Solicitor General informs us, in this regard, that
“foreign governments’ objections to some domestic courts’ expansive
views of general jurisdiction have in the past impeded negotiations
of international agreements on the reciprocal recognition and
enforcement of judgments.” U. S. Brief 2 (citing Juenger, The
American Law of General Jurisdiction, 2001 U. Chi. Legal Forum 141,
161–162). See also U. S. Brief 2 (expressing concern
thatunpredictable applications of general jurisdiction based on
activities of U. S.-based subsidiaries could discourage
foreign investors); Brief for Respondents 35 (acknowledging that
“doing business” basis for general jurisdiction has led to
“international friction”). Considerations of international rapport
thus reinforce our determination that subjecting Daimler to the
general jurisdiction of courts in California would not accord with
the “fair play and substantial justice” due process demands.
International Shoe, 326 U. S., at 316 (quoting Milliken v.
Meyer, 311 U. S. 457, 463 (1940) ).
* * *
For the reasons
stated, the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the
Ninth Circuit is
Reversed.