J. Mcintyre Machinery, LTD., Petitioner v. Robert Nicastro, Individually and As Administrator of the Estate of Roseanne Nicastro (564 U.S. 873)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 27, 2011 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 564 U.S. 873 · 131 S. Ct. 2780
- Decided
- June 27, 2011
- Term
- October Term 2010
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Kennedy
- Issue area
- Due Process
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Kennedy announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which The ChieF Justice, Justice Scalia, and Justice Thomas join. . Whether a person or entity is-subject to the jurisdiction of a state court despite not having been present in the State either at the time of suit or at the time of the alleged injury, and despite not having consented to the exercise of jurisdiction, is a question that arises with great frequency in the routine course of litigation. The rules and standards for determining when a State does or does not have jurisdiction over an absent party have been unclear because of decades-old questions left open in Asahi Metal Industry Co. v. Superior Court of Cal., Solano Cty., 480 U. S. 102 (1987). Here, the Supreme Court of New Jersey, relying in part on Asahi, held that New Jersey’s courts can exercise jurisdiction over a foreign manufacturer of a product so long as the manufacturer “knows or reasonably should know that its products are distributed through a nationwide distribution system that might lead to those products being sold in any of the fifty states." Nicastro v. McIntyre Machinery America, Ltd., 201 N. J. 48, 76, 77, 987 A. 2d 575, 591, 592 (2010). Applying that test, the court concluded that a British manufacturer of scrap metal machines was subject to jurisdiction in New Jersey, even though at no time had it advertised in,…
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