Société Générale De Banque Au Liban, S.A.L. v. Ester Lelchook, Individually and as Personal Representative of the Estate of David Martin Lelchook, et al.

This Court has long required that the exercise of personal jurisdiction over a defendant rest either on the defendant’s own suit-related contacts with the forum State (specific jurisdiction) or its own “continuous and systematic” affiliations that render it essentially at home there (general jurisdiction). The Court has never departed from that defendant-centric approach. And that approach forecloses the exercise of personal jurisdiction over Petitioner here. Indeed, it is undisputed that Petitioner itself has no forum contacts. Nevertheless, Respondents seek to assert personal jurisdiction by imputing an unaffiliated nonparty’s contacts to Petitioner, based merely on Petitioner’s foreign acquisition of the nonparty’s assets and liabilities. The District Court heeded this Court’s unwavering focus on a defendant’s own forum contacts and rejected Respondents’ theory. But the Second Circuit reversed. In its view, if substantive “forum law” could hold a defendant “liable” for a nonparty’s actions, then the nonparty’s “related jurisdictional actions should also attach” to the defendant. That approach is inconsistent with this Court’s precedents and deepens an entrenched split among the lower courts. The question presented is: Whether the Due Process Clause allows courts to exercise personal jurisdiction by imputing an unaffiliated nonparty’s forum contacts to a defendant with no forum contacts of its own.