Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.a., et al., Petitioners v. Edgar D. Brown, et Ux., Co-administrators of the Estate of Julian David Brown, et al. (564 U.S. 915)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 27, 2011 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 564 U.S. 915 · 131 S. Ct. 2846
- Decided
- June 27, 2011
- Term
- October Term 2010
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Due Process
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court. This case concerns the jurisdiction of state courts over corporations organized and operating abroad. We address, in particular, thi3 question: Arc 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? A bus accident outside Paris that took the lives of two 13-year-old boys from North Carolina gave rise to the litigation we here consider. Attributing the accident to a defective tire manufactured in Turkey at the plant of a foreign subsidiary of The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company (Goodyear USA), the boys’ parents commenced an action for damages in a North Carolina state court; they named as defendants Goodyear USA, an Ohio corporation, and three of its subsidiaries, organized and operating, respectively, in Turkey, France, and Luxembourg. Goodyear USA, which had plants in North Carolina and regularly engaged in commercial activity there, did not contest the North Carolina court's jurisdiction over it; Goodyear USA’s foreign subsidiaries, however, maintained that North Carolina lacked adjudicatory authority over them. A state court’s assertion of jurisdiction exposes defendants to the State’s coercive power, and is therefore subject to review for compatibility with the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.…
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