General personal jurisdiction—whereby a state court asserts jurisdiction over a defendant on claims unrelated to the defendant’s activities in the forum state—has long been a doctrine with uncertain parameters. It was the primary, but untested, form of personal jurisdiction under Pennoyer v. Neff. The Supreme Court in International Shoe Co. v. Washington recognized general jurisdiction as one of two basic types of jurisdiction under minimum contacts analysis but did little to define it. Lower courts struggled for decades with general jurisdiction. In the 1980s, Professors Lea Brilmayer and Mary Twitchell engaged in extensive debate concerning general jurisdiction. Other scholars weighed in. Since the 1980s, the Court has been nearly silent on all matters of personal jurisdiction. In 2011, the Court broke the silence in two new cases: Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown and J. McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro. Goodyear is only the Court’s third case addressing general jurisdiction. McIntyre, a specific jurisdiction case, gives insights as to the philosophy of current members of the Court regarding personal jurisdiction as a whole. In this Article, I use the standards of Goodyear and the policy debate of McIntyre as a springboard for a “fresh look” at general jurisdiction.
