Insurance Corporation of Ireland, LTD., et al. v. Compagnie Des Bauxites De Guinee (456 U.S. 694)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 1, 1982 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 456 U.S. 694 · 102 S. Ct. 2099
- Decided
- June 1, 1982
- Term
- October Term 1981
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice White
- Issue area
- Due Process
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice White delivered the opinion of the Court. Rule 37(b), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, provides that a district court may impose sanctions for failure to comply with discovery orders. Included among the available sanctions is: “An order that the matters regarding which the order was made or any other designated facts shall be taken to be established for the purposes of the action in accordance with the claim of the party obtaining the order.” Rule 37(b)(2)(A). The question presented by this case is whether this Rule is applicable to facts that form the basis for personal jurisdiction over a defendant. May a district court, as a sanction for failure to comply with a discovery order directed at establishing jurisdictional facts, proceed on the basis that personal jurisdiction over the recalcitrant party has been established? Petitioners urge that such an application of the Rule would violate due process: If a court does not have jurisdiction over a party, then it may not create that jurisdiction by judicial fiat. They contend also that until a court has jurisdiction over a party, that party need not comply with orders of the court; failure to comply, therefore, cannot provide the ground for a sanction. In our view, petitioners are attempting to create a logical conundrum out of a fairly straightforward matter. I Respondent Compagnie des Bauxites de Guiñee (CBG) is a…
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