Day & Zimmermann NPS, Inc. v. John Waters, Individually and on Behalf of All Others Similarly Situated

In Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court, 137 S. Ct. 1773, 1780-81 (2017), this Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment requires dismissing out-of-state plaintiffs seeking to join a mass action in a state court that lacks general personal jurisdiction over the defendant. Relying on Bristol-Myers Squibb, the Sixth and Eighth Circuit have dismissed out-of-state plaintiffs seeking to join collective actions under the Fair Labor Standards Act. These Circuits applied Bristol-Myers Squibb because Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(k)(1)(A) allows federal courts to exercise personal jurisdiction over a defendant only to the extent that the forum state’s courts could exercise personal jurisdiction. In the decision below, the First Circuit broke with the Sixth and Eighth Circuits, openly acknowledging it was creating a circuit conflict. It held that Rule 4(k)(1)(A) applies only to the initial service of summons. On this view, once a single in-state FLSA claim has been properly served, thousands of out-ofstate plaintiffs may later opt into the federal action, even if the state courts in the forum could not exercise personal jurisdiction with respect to those claims. The question presented is: Whether out-of-state plaintiffs seeking to opt into an FLSA collective action pending in federal court must demonstrate that the forum state’s courts would have personal jurisdiction over their claims.