Samsung Electronics America, Inc. v. Jordan Brewer

The decision below ignores the central teaching of Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Ry. Co., 600 U.S. 122 (2023). That decision upheld Pennsylvania’s exercise of general jurisdiction over a foreign corporation because Pennsylvania’s business-registration statute gave express notice that registration to do business constituted consent to general jurisdiction. That is uncommon. Like 36 other States, Georgia’s business-registration statute contains no comparable provision. Instead, Georgia and at least two other States infer consent to general jurisdiction based on judicial interpretations of statutes that concededly lack the notice that was central to Mallory. The question presented is whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment permits a State to assert general jurisdiction without providing notice that registration constitutes consent to general jurisdiction, particularly where, as here, the judicial decisions supplying that notice were issued only after the corporation first registered to do business.