World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson

McGee and Hanson were both contracts cases.  The intentional nature of contractual relationships produces fact patterns that provide an easier fit for the sorts of factors that the Supreme Court has wanted to emphasize in its personal jurisdiction cases, such as purposeful availment, the benefits gained from doing business in a state, voluntary defendant choices that do or do not make the exercise of personal jurisdiction over that defendant reasonable.

Lawsuits involving causes of action other than contracts provide a greater challenge.  How do concepts emphasizing intentionality, such as "purposeful availment," fit when the plaintiff is alleging that the defendant should be liable for something unintentional, such as an unintentional tort? Worse still, how does a concept like the benefits from doing business in a state apply to a child support case or a divorce?

The next two cases, World-Wide Volkswagen and J. McIntyre, involve products liability lawsuits.  As you will learn in your torts class, products liability, though a tort, is analogous to a breach of contract cause of action.  In such a setting, one might characterize the Supreme Court's insistence on business concepts strained but not crazy.  See what you think.  Then, see if you think that the Supreme Court has wandered into the world of crazy when, in Kulko (see below), it tries to apply concepts such as "purposeful availment" to child support litigation.

Meanwhile, since the industrial revolution, many (perhaps most) consumer products that are the subject of litigation are mass produced.  Thus, by articulating law regarding where a plaintiff can sue a mass-producing defendant, the Supreme Court regulates the national and global economies. We will return repeatedly in this course to the idea that in articulating Civil Procedure concepts, the court system regulates economic activity.