A woman works on her laptop outside of the US Supreme Court on Feb. 22, 2023 in Washington, D.C. Taft Stettinius & Hollister’s Sohan Dasgupta analyzes the potential impact of the US Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern on business activities in states. Courts are divided on whether a state may require a corporation to consent to personal jurisdiction as a prerequisite for doing business in that state. The US Supreme Court soon will decide, in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co . , whether the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause allows a state to mandate that. That Clause says, “No State shall … deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Pennsylvania Law Pennsylvania’s long-arm statute says a foreign corporation “may not do business in this Commonwealth until it registers” with the Commonwealth’s Department of State. Pennsylvania law also says that “qualification as a foreign corporation under the laws of this Commonwealth” enables state courts to exercise general jurisdiction over those defendants, just by virtue of such a corporation’s mandatory registration. The Commonwealth’s courts concluded that state law’s assuming a defendant’s “voluntary consent to Pennsylvania courts’ exercise of general personal […]
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