Burnham V. Superior Court of California - Justice Scalia's Plurality Opinion

Justice Scalia's Plurality Opinion

Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the lead opinion in the case, joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Justice Anthony Kennedy, and in part by Justice Byron R. White. Scalia begin by defining the question presented as "whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment denies California courts jurisdiction over a nonresident, who was personally served with process while temporarily in that State, in a suit unrelated to his activities in the State."

Scalia took a historical approach to answering this question. In Scalia's view, buttressed by citation of numerous cases, "mong the most firmly established principles of personal jurisdiction in American tradition is that the courts of a State have jurisdiction over nonresidents who are physically present in the State." At common law, service of process on the defendant within the forum state was a prerequisite to exercising jurisdiction over the defendant in that state. In cases such as International Shoe Co. v. Washington and Shaffer v. Heitner, the Court had accepted that a non-resident served outside a state could still be subject to jurisdiction, but only where the defendant had "certain minimum contacts with it such that the maintenance of the suit does not offend 'traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.'" However, these cases did not support the converse argument that the longstanding practice of obtaining jurisdiction over a defendant by serving process within the forum might now violate due process. " a doctrine of personal jurisdiction that dates back to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment and is still generally observed unquestionably meets th standard" of due process.