What a Long-Arm Statute Reaches
Before a court can decide anything about a dispute, it has to have power over the person on the other side of it. For someone who has never set foot in the state, that power comes from a statute, and it stops where the Constitution says it does.
The rule in short
Personal jurisdiction over a defendant outside the state requires two things: a state statute authorizing it, and consistency with constitutional due process. Some states enumerate specific acts — transacting business, committing a tort, owning property, contracting to insure a risk — while others simply extend jurisdiction to the constitutional limit, collapsing the two questions into one.
A summons arriving from a state a business has never operated in raises one question before all the others: can that court do this? The answer has two halves, and a defendant who addresses only the constitutional half has skipped the argument that succeeds more often.
The two questions
Does the statute authorize it. A state court's power over a person outside its borders comes from the state's own legislation, and if the legislation does not cover the defendant's conduct, the inquiry ends there.
Does due process permit it. The federal Constitution sets an outer boundary that no state may exceed, examined through the contacts analysis described in the contacts a court looks for.
Both are required. Satisfying one is not enough, and a defendant may prevail on either.
They are answered in order. The statutory question comes first because it is a matter of ordinary construction, and because a court that finds no statutory authority never reaches the constitutional issue.
And they collapse in some states. Where the legislature has extended jurisdiction to the full extent permitted by the Constitution, the two questions become one, which is why the drafting style of the forum's statute matters so much.
The enumerated acts
Transacting business in the state. The broadest of the usual categories, read to require purposeful dealing rather than a particular volume.
Committing a tortious act within the state. Straightforward where the defendant acted locally, and genuinely contested where the conduct was elsewhere and only the harm was local.
Acting outside the state and causing injury inside it. Where a statute includes this category it usually attaches conditions — regular solicitation, a persistent course of conduct, or substantial revenue from the state.
Owning, using or possessing property in the state. Limited to claims connected to that property, and of narrow practical reach.
Contracting to insure a person, property or risk located in the state. A category that exists because insurers deal at a distance by design, and one with no obvious analog for other businesses.
| Enumerated act | Commonly covered | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Transacting business in the state | Yes | Purposeful, not necessarily large |
| Committing a tortious act within the state | Yes | Contested where conduct was elsewhere |
| Acting outside, causing injury inside | Sometimes | Usually with added conditions |
| Owning or using property in the state | Yes | Only for related claims |
| Contracting to insure a local risk | Yes | A category of its own |
How the statute is read
Word by word, in the forum's own version. These statutes were enacted at different times by different legislatures, and the differences between them are the whole of the argument.
With the forum's own case law. How a state's courts have construed transacting business is a matter of that state's law, and general propositions from elsewhere carry little weight.
Claim by claim. A defendant may be within the statute for a contract claim arising from local dealings and outside it for a tort claim arising from conduct elsewhere.
Against the specific facts pleaded. The connection has to be to the claim being made, not to the defendant's activities in general, which is the specific jurisdiction requirement examined in general and specific jurisdiction compared.
And without assuming the constitutional answer decides it. An enumerated statute can fall short of the constitutional limit deliberately, and courts apply it as written rather than reading it up to the boundary.
Constitutional contacts arguments turn on characterization and judicial instinct. Whether a defendant transacted business within the meaning of a particular statute, as that state's courts have construed the phrase, has a researchable answer. Defendants who lead with due process and footnote the statute lose motions the wording would have won.
What does not establish reach
The plaintiff's residence alone. That the person suing lives in the state is a contact of the plaintiff, not of the defendant, and it has consistently been held insufficient by itself.
Foreseeability of harm there. Knowing that an injury might be felt in a state is not the same as reaching into it, a distinction that decides many online and product cases, discussed in selling online into a state you have never visited.
A website accessible everywhere. Availability without targeting has generally not been enough, and the analysis turns on interaction and direction rather than on access.
Unilateral acts of a third party. A product carried into the state by its buyer, or a contract assigned to a resident after the fact, are not choices the defendant made.
Correspondence alone, usually. Calls, emails and payments directed into a state are relevant and rarely sufficient on their own, though they become significant when combined with a continuing relationship.
Responding to a summons
Read the forum's statute first. Before assessing contacts, establish whether the conduct alleged falls within an enumerated category at all, because that argument is decided on text rather than on judgment.
Preserve the objection. Personal jurisdiction is waivable, and the steps required to contest it without submitting are set out in appearing to object without submitting.
Check for a forum clause. An agreement selecting that state's courts may supply consent independently of the statute, which is examined in forum selection clauses and their limits.
Check for a registered agent. Registration to do business and the appointment of an agent may amount to consent in some states, as described in what appointing a registered agent concedes.
And weigh the alternative. Winning a jurisdictional motion means the claim is refiled where the defendant is, which is sometimes a worse forum than the one being contested. The motion is a tactical decision as much as a legal one.
The reason the statutory question deserves the attention it rarely gets is that it is decided on materials both sides can read in advance. Constitutional contacts arguments turn on characterization, degree and judicial instinct, and they are hard to predict. Whether a defendant transacted business within the meaning of a particular statute, as that state's courts have construed the phrase, is a question with a researchable answer. Defendants who lead with due process and mention the statute in a footnote have inverted the order of the argument, and they lose motions that the text would have won.
Two further practical points are worth keeping in view. The first is that the analysis is conducted for each defendant and each claim separately, so a case involving a company, its officers and a distributor can produce three different answers. Officers in particular are frequently named on the assumption that the company's contacts carry over to them, and in most states they do not: a person who acted only in their corporate capacity, from another state, has generally not made contacts of their own. That argument is available even where the company's own position is hopeless.
The second is that a jurisdictional challenge is not free. It requires a factual showing, usually by declaration, about what the business did and did not do in the state, and the plaintiff is commonly permitted limited discovery on the point before the motion is decided. That discovery is intrusive, it is not confined to the pleaded claim, and it occasionally uncovers contacts nobody at the company remembered. A motion brought on an incomplete internal picture can therefore end up establishing the very jurisdiction it was intended to defeat, which is a reason to assemble the facts before deciding whether to contest rather than after.
None of this alters the basic sequence. Read the statute, apply it to what was actually done, and only then turn to the constitutional question. A defendant who works in that order will usually know within an hour whether there is an argument worth making, and a defendant who works in the opposite order will usually spend considerably longer reaching the same conclusion.
Points to carry away
- Jurisdiction requires both statutory authorization and constitutional permission.
- Enumerated statutes list specific acts that subject a person to jurisdiction.
- Limit-of-due-process statutes collapse the two questions into one.
- A defendant can satisfy the Constitution and still fall outside an enumerated statute.
- The statute of the forum governs, so the answer changes from state to state.
Questions readers ask
Why are there two separate questions?
Because they come from different sources. The statute is the state's own decision about how far it wishes to reach, and a legislature is free to reach less far than the Constitution would allow. Due process is the outer boundary, set by the federal Constitution and applying to every state alike. A defendant therefore has two independent arguments: that the statute does not cover what they did, and that even if it does, exercising jurisdiction over them would be unfair. Losing one does not mean losing the other, and the statutory argument is frequently the stronger.
What does transacting business mean?
Less than it sounds, in most states. The phrase has generally been read to require something purposeful rather than substantial, so a single negotiated contract with a resident can be enough while a large volume of passive sales through an intermediary may not be. What courts look for is whether the defendant reached into the state deliberately, which is the same inquiry that runs through the constitutional test. The volume of business matters far less than whether the defendant chose to do it there.
Does an injury in the state by itself create jurisdiction?
Not automatically, and this is where enumerated statutes differ most from one another. Some cover a tortious act committed within the state, which a defendant who acted entirely elsewhere may not satisfy even though the harm was felt locally. Others expressly cover an act outside the state causing injury within it, but attach conditions — regular solicitation, a persistent course of conduct, or revenue derived from the state. Reading the specific wording is unavoidable, because summaries of what long-arm statutes do conceal exactly these differences.
Sources
- Legal Information Institute — Long Arm Statutelaw.cornell.edu
- Legal Information Institute — Personal Jurisdictionlaw.cornell.edu
- Legal Information Institute — Due Processlaw.cornell.edu
- Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4 — Summonslaw.cornell.edu
- Legal Information Institute — Minimum Contactslaw.cornell.edu
- United States Courts — Court Role and Structureuscourts.gov
Right Way Review is a publication, not a law firm. This article states general rules and cites its sources; it is not advice about any particular case, and the law differs by state and changes over time.
More in Being Sued in Another State
General and Specific Jurisdiction Compared
General jurisdiction permits a court to hear any claim against a defendant, however unconnected to the state, and requires affiliations so continuous and systematic as to render the defendant essentially at home there. For an individual that means domicile; for a corporation it means the place of incorporation and the principal place of business, with exceptional cases beyond those.
A Default Judgment Entered in Another State
Full faith and credit requires each state to give a sister-state judgment the effect it has where rendered, which is enforced through a registration procedure adopted in most states rather than by fresh litigation. A judgment debtor cannot reopen the merits, cannot argue that the rendering state applied the wrong law and cannot invoke public policy.
What Appointing a Registered Agent Concedes
A business qualifying to do business in another state must generally appoint a registered agent to receive service of process there. That appointment reliably means papers can be served, which removes one obstacle a plaintiff would otherwise face. Whether registration also amounts to consent to general jurisdiction — the power to hear any claim, however unconnected — is a question of the registering state's own law, and states differ sharply.