Murco Wall Products, Inc. v. Michael D. Galier

This Court has held that, except in an “exceptional case,” general personal jurisdiction over a corporate defendant exists only in the defendant’s State of incorporation and principal place of business. See Daimler AG v. Bauman, 134 S. Ct. 746, 760-61 & n.19 (2014). The Court has likewise held that a state court may exercise specific personal jurisdiction over an out-of-State corporation only when there is “an affiliation between the forum and the underlying controversy, principally, an activity or an occurrence that takes place in the forum State” and that, “[w]hen there is no such connection, specific jurisdiction is lacking regardless of the extent of a defendant’s unconnected activities in the State.” BristolMyers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of Cal., 137 S. Ct. 1773, 1781 (2017) (quotation marks and brackets omitted). In this case, rather than adhering to the limitations on general and specific jurisdiction recognized by this Court, the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals analyzed petitioner’s challenge to the trial court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction by inquiring whether “the totality of [petitioner’s] contacts [with Oklahoma] makes an exercise of jurisdiction proper.” The question presented is: Whether the “totality of contacts” standard applied by the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals comports with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and this Court’s precedents.